I had an interesting conversation with someone today about building life purpose, from the context of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (F.I.R.E) movement. Honestly, I don't know much about the concept other than the very basics and the at least perception that the people who practice it, tend to go to some extreme lengths to meet their goals.
My friend said about what these people are willing to go without and how much focus they put on saving money, "that is no way to live!"
While I kind of agree as I think all things can be taken too far, I tend to always take the devil's advocate position and argued that although we might not think it is a good life - they likely have a lot of satisfaction based on their practice.
In many ways, the absence of religion in many people's lives has left a void of purpose, as we are no longer explicitly directed to behave a certain way in order to get into some kind of heaven, so we create our own rules. This is easier said than done of course, as the sheer range of options, not to mention the complexity of conflicts, means that we can become frozen by choice, making committing to a path difficult. In the past and for many still, they don't need to think about any of this, as a book gives them all the purpose they need.
It is no wonder really that finance has become a focus of so much purpose in life as the economy touches everything that we find important in our lives, whether it be the choice of work we do or don't do, the educations we have available, or the safety of the suburb we raise our children in - money matters. As such, money matters are an easy point to concentrate on as no matter what we want to accomplish in life, economic availability helps us get there in some way.
What I was saying to my friend is that the process of saving and investing hits so many of our human triggers and touches upon so many of our needs, that we are able to justify our sacrifice today for a larger purpose - even if that purpose is our own well being or our desire to not work. It is systematic and requires consideration as to how we behave, what we consume, where we spend our time and of course - the value of all things.
We have to continually ask ourselves "Is it worth it?"
This is something that many people don't actually think that much about, as if they did, we would probably see a change in consumer behavior, as well as a change in social behavior, since so much of what we buy and do is disposable. We spend our money on useless crap, we spend our time on useless crap.
There are already many movements similar to F.I.R.E out there, for example where people simplify their lives, declutter their homes and reevaluate what is important to hold and let go of - including relationships. The people who are looking at getting out of "the rat race" are going through various forms of evaluation of their behavior and streamlining their lives, simplifying their minds - getting back to basics.
It is also like the people who are trying to be their physical best, those who watch what they eat, how they exercise, the way they stand, sit and move, all in order to be their physical best. Or, those who work on their mental prowess, or spend their time cataloguing stamps, or memorizing baseball stats. Saving and investing is a collection activity and feeds to our need to organize our world, bring structure and living a minimalistic is about collecting in the negative, by finding more ways to reduce the footprint.
There is a satisfaction found in achieving goals and no matter what we are doing, there are milestones everywhere, everything in life is gamified. Finance just tracks all of the behaviors through numbers, while other activities might track it through other factors. Religion for example has a tracking system too and it works on various levels, including the emotional sense of adherence to the rules and the social sense of being seen to adhere or the guilt felt when caught breaking the rules - or the punishment, depending on the practice followed. It is a scoring system, no different to what Wall Street uses in concept - all to feel that the life being lived has meaning.
Meaning is something that we are nearly all searching for in some way or another and we take many paths to get that feeling that what we do matters - even if it doesn't. Some people use the rules of a culture to follow and some make their own rules, but rules are used to define what we do and therefore, who we feel we are.
A lot of the people who are living the frugal life in an attempt to retire early, will likely get a lot of satisfaction from the dollars they save, while someone else who likes to have the latest gadget, gets satisfaction from the money they spend. Is there really a difference in practice?
Not much by my measure, though the implications of what we do and how we live our lives, do not exist in a vacuum, they are connected to the world in which we live, including the other people who live in this world with us, now and in the future.
While my friend who wants to be financially independent and retire early is unwilling to go to the extremes of the people who adhere to a more extreme form of the practice, he still gets satisfaction from accomplishing the steps he does along the path. But like most people, he isn't single-minded in his activity and gets satisfaction from other aspects of life too, like having a few gadgets or considering a new car. But all in all, he is much the same as everyone else looking for purpose, just at different points on the spectrum.
It is funny to think though that while we look at others and say, "that is no way to live!" the reality is that we are just focusing on different parts of life to achieve the same goals - to find a little bit of meaning to our existence, by any means available.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]