Long Live the Revolutions

As I’ve explained on this here blog from time to time, I’ve pretty much always been a rule follower. And a high achiever. A people pleaser, to no small extent, too. Society has always told me that this is right.

But a consequence is that I’ve been far too focused on work more times than I care to admit. It’s also resulted in chronic low-level stress for me, which can morph into high-level stress when I have a big or difficult work project.

Rebel yell

FIREing will constitute one of my biggest acts of rebellion. Healthy rebellion . . . good rebellion . . . I grant you. But a clear middle finger hand put up with the wildest of wild enthusiasm to the system that bore me and at the teat of which I’ve suckled for decades. 

Those who find out I’ve left my long-time full-time gig and manage to get past what I expect will be their great surprise and inability to understand what I’ve done may, in time, be able to read between the lines and see my finger hand. To others who don’t, but press me to try to make sense of it all in their heads, I may (depending how hard and insistent the pressing), tell them that I’ve staged a quiet and bloodless—but ruthless, one-sided, and contemptuous—personal revolution against the system.

Now, what?

I’ve mentioned my plans to FIRE at the end of the year to scant few people (to colleagues I’m leaving behind, I’m calling my exit by a different name, which although not untrue doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story). One is a dear friend of mine. We’ll call him Petey. I wrote about Petey and his workday a while back. Petey’s known of my general FIRE plans since I discovered FIRE in the first place. In fact, he’s one of the first people I reached out to to talk about FIRE when I discovered it. Side note: he found it a little interesting, but didn’t think much more of it than that. Side side note: I’m hoping that Petey seeing me FIRE and (hopefully) thriving and (more hopefully still) having my net worth grow will spur him to change his tune.

One of the first things that Petey asked me when I told him earlier this year of my plan to FIRE at the end of the year was, “What are you going to do after you leave your job?” An entirely reasonable question that was. And one I’d considered for a long time. But I admit that actually hearing the question put to me, directly, struck me somewhat oddly. I may even have stumbled and fumbled about a bit as I gave an answer that almost seemed like it was being mouthed by someone other than myself. That answer mostly included bits about me doing volunteer work, and some part-time work (both that I currently have going and perhaps some other endeavors I’ll pursue), and other things that will keep me at somewhat busy. 

But that answer, while it may very well end up being accurate, just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t then pinpoint the reason why though. Worse, the question kept niggling at me long after the conversation ended, and I found myself trying to figure out the right answer for me. 

The truth of the matter

The true answer started forming slowly in my head. Almost subconsciously, too. But yet, there was no epiphany.

Until I was at an event a few months later. I got to talking to a woman there who’s also on the FIRE path and mentioned my plans. After congratulating me, she asked what I plan to do after FIREing. And then my mouth spoke these words: “I just want to not work. At least for a while. And maybe longer.” Yet again, it seemed like someone else was mouthing those words. But this time, they felt wholly authentic. I may even have audibly sighed a relieved sigh after saying them.

I realized that I’d struck upon the truth. But I’d previously been afraid to admit it to myself. 

And that was the root of the problem. I needed my brain to come to terms that it’s OK to not want to work. For a little while. Or for a long while. Or for however long it takes for me to reach the point of contentment that when it arrives, I’ll know it. 

A month or so later, I got together with another good friend, Danny (whom I also wrote about in my post on the working lives of others). He’s one of the other people I told about my end-of-the-year FIRE plan, and he posed to me the same question as Petey. This time, I answered authentically and confidently, “I just want to not work. At least for a while. And maybe longer.” And it felt right. Just as right as the time I’d said it the first time.

I’m finding that the societally built, warped infrastructure that formed my heretofore work-often-comes-first tendencies isn’t as easy to for me to dismantle as I’d once have figured. But my internal revolution has begun.

And in the end . . . 

I dunno if or when my silent external or loud internal revolutions will be wholly successful. But I’m pretty sure it’s all gonna be alright.