Since FIREing, I’ve gotten a lot more involved in the IRL FIRE community. Big events/conferences in other cities? I’ve attended a few. Local meetups and organized events? Dozens, Dear Reader. Casual get togethers with friends? Bigly times.
Not that I suspected or knew otherwise, but everyone I’ve had the honor and privilege of meeting in this community is so, so nice. And smart. Often ridiculously smart. Sure, I’m dumb as flute, so almost everyone is smarter than me. It’s a low bar, I freely admit. But it’s objectively true that so many FIRE community people are smarter than even your above av-er-age bear. What’s more, I challenge you to find a group so generous in sharing its practical knowledge. I so frequently find myself both humbled by, and giddily lapping up, community members’ wisdom and cleverness. That wisdom and cleverness being shared for the low, low price of free.
Living large living
What’s more, so many of these folks are living their best lives. Or, if still on the journey to FIRE, dreaming large. Like really large.
All sorts of cool activities/goals. Simultaneously small and revolutionary things like spending as much time as they please with family and friends any or every day of the week. Or starting one or a dozen passion projects and devoting as much time as desired to it/them. Or taking open-ended road trips or world travel.
And more. So much more!
One time only!
On first glance, the contrast between those things done/trips taken and the fancy escapades that I (and probly you, too, Dear Reader) routinely see people humblebragging writing about on LinkedIn—such as how the person posting took a week or two (or sometimes even just a day) off from work to vacation someplace or other or do some nonwork-related thing and now are so, so grateful, happy, and super recharged—might not seem all that big or remarkable.
Oh, but it is Dear Reader. It is.
I once took those LinkedIn posts at face value. I might’ve even envied the writers a bit. But now? Not . . . at . . . all.
Because compared to what people in the FIRE community do (often regularly) or dream about, what those LinkedIn posters are so proud of having done seems comically small. Comically comically small.
In part because the LinkedIn poster’s activity often pales in comparison to what so many FIRE community people regularly do or will do once FIREd. I mean, 10 days splashing about in St. Thomas or five days skiing in Breckenridge or a two-day staycation with the spouse and kids is nice. But compared to an FI person’s impromptu three- (or maybe six-? How about 12-?) month slow-travel jaunt through Southeast Asia or everyday hours of stress-free quality time with the family, it’s positively quaint.
But for more so because there’s something bigger at play. Much bigger if you ask me.
What’s that Dear Reader? You say you not only didn’t ask me, but don’t wanna hear my ramblings? Well, I see you and I hear you. But, too bad. I’ve nothing better to do, so Imma ramble on.
The reason I now give the stink eye to these LinkedIn posts is cuz I have every reason to believe, from knowledge and experience, that most of those posters took that trip/did the thing with no larger context or life plan.
That is, their trip/thing they did was just a one-off. Nothing more. Nothing less. All but certainly (again, based on my knowledge and experience) among a series of one-offs. One-offs that are but mere pauses in a four-decade or more working life doing work not in whole—or, sadly, even in part—filling the person’s life with joy. A working life that will last until or past traditional retirement age.
Put another way, the trip taken/thing done is a mere aberration or interruption in the life of work. Work that for so many doesn’t completely (or at least mostly) light the person up. They work, they take a trip in no small part to get away from that work (even if they don’t say as much, or perhaps even message the opposite), and then they go right back to that work.
In the FIRE community, the trip taken/thing done is the life. What a way to live a life solving for happiness. By default!
I don’t mean to belittle the LinkedIn posters’ trips taken/things done. I’m sure they were great. Maybe even meaningful in some cases.
But, still, they’re just not at all impressive or inspiring once you’ve read about what so many in the FIRE community have done/are doing/plan to do. There’s rarely any comparison.
MeaningLess
Even if we strip the LinkedIn post from its humblebragging pretense (which I find hard to do, but, hey, I’ll do it for kicks and giggles), let’s dissect the post.
Per Wikipedia, “LinkedIn is an American business and employment-oriented social networking service. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, as it allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post their job listings.” (Italics mine)
I dunno if everyone on LinkedIn knows that. But I’ll hazard a guess that most do. So, posts mostly ought to cover job-/career- or business-related subjects. Anything outside that area is or should be known to be “off topic.” Also, to the extent that LinkedIn is a site on which one can establish, (re)mold, and build an individual brand, one’s posts on the site mostly ought to do that.
Whaddabout the types of posts I’m focusing on? Are they business and/or employment-oriented?
Well, I guess the ones that talk about the macro effect of the trip taken/thing done might do that (the ones just discussing the trip taken/thing done clearly don’t, IMHO). But, hey, just about everyone takes a trip/does a thing that they find “notable” in some way. So, unless it was something fundamentally and demonstrably changing the poster (I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a post like this) I see little reason for the post other than, perhaps, to show you’re not a robot who only works all the time. Beyond this, these posts seem nonbusiness and/or employment-oriented one-offs, and lacking purpose to me.
Now for the branding aspect. Let’s assume that the post didn’t demonstrate fundamental and demonstrable change in the poster. Cuz, like I mentioned, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a post that does that. In that context, I’ll posit that these posts are actually counterproductive. I mean, they show the poster not working, and often imply that given the opportunity the poster would rather not work. Or at least not work in their then current job. If I’m a (prospective) employer, uuummm, maybe that doesn’t impress me.
Where does that leave me? Well, I‘m now thinking that the poster has posted about something off topic, that lacks any material meaning/branding message, and that doesn’t change my perception of him or her.
And, like I mentioned earlier, the poster has provided no greater—and impressive—context. I have no reason to believe that the poster has figgered out life. And lemme tell you, people who’ve figgered out life, or who I know to have made a stab at it, impress me. Mucho. The FIRE community is riddled with these folks. Were I an employer, I’d not just be impressed by people who’ve figgered out life, I’d have a yuge bias for hiring them were I lucky enough to have one seek to work for me. They get it. And if they’re gonna put work as an element in the best life they’re living, I’m gonna hazard a guess that I as the employer am gonna get a really good and fiercely dedicated employee (so long as I, the boss) provide working conditions that the employee can get behind.
And in the end . . .
Contemplating an equivalent LinkedIn post by a FIRE community member, I can imagine something completely opposite. For example, a post discussing how the poster was just doing his or her own thing, living his or her best life, when all of a sudden they learned of a—or started their own—cool company doing cool things, started working there, and just finished a cool project, putting in hours of passion in completing it. All demonstrating a life the person loves that just so happens to have been made richer by the addition of work. Now that, Dear Reader, I’d be impressed by as an employer.
