Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #1 — Jealousy
If we lived in a perfect world, people would look up to those living the good life and seek to emulate them. We don’t live in a perfect world. Live the good life and some are going to hate you. It’s called “jealousy.” It’s a depressing reality. It’s a reality all the same.
Don’t flaunt your wealth. Most of all, don’t flaunt your independence. Independence is more rare than wealth. It provokes more jealousy.
Don’t mention to coworkers that you plan to retire early. Don’t even let thought of your plans cross your mind when your boss is in the room. He or she might be able to read it in your eyes. Be cautious even among neighbors and family relations. You do need to share your exciting plans with someone. Limit sharing to close friends, who understand the difference between confiding and boasting.
One thing you have working in your favor is that the path to The Good Life heads in a different direction than the path to consumerism. You probably will not be driving an expensive car or wearing expensive jewelry. A chip on your shoulder can be just as showy, however. Be happy, but be humble happy.
Don’t think you can convert people. If they ask questions that indicate a sincere interest, then sure, offer a helping hand. If the person showing sincere interest is a coworker, describe your interest in early financial freedom as something you are exploring. Make it sound as if it’s an odd idea you happened across, one that you are not sure whether to take seriously or not. Better safe than sorry. If the coworker comes back to you a week later with his or her mind on fire, it might be prudent to take small steps forward on what could become a special relationship.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #2 — Insecurity
There’s no such thing as security. Not in the Valley of Tears.
I recall the financial worries I had over having children. People who grew up in an earlier day had more children at an earlier age and never gave the financial aspects a second thought. It’s because they had less that they worried less. Insecurity comes from a perception of risk. We sometimes perceive things as being worse than they are and we sometimes perceive things as being better than they are. The better things are, the more we take note of things that could send things in a downward direction.
So there’s no escaping feelings of insecurity. The more you have, the more you worry that you might lose some of what you have. Frank Sinatra sang a song (“I’ve Got Plenty of Nothing”) about this phenomenon:
Folks with plenty of plenty,
They sleep with a lock on the door.
Afraid somebody’s gonna rob them
While they’re out making more”
He suggests that the thing to do is to be content with having a girl and a song and a blanket for a picnic. That might be taking a good idea to an extreme. But I do think there’s something to be said for recognizing that, if you are one of the highly fortunate ones and you suffer a big loss, you’re still one of the fortunate ones. Warren Buffett makes the point that the single biggest contributing factor to his massive accumulation of wealth was his luck in being born into one of the modern industrialized economies. Warren must have spent a lot of time in his youth listening to Frankie. How else could he have gotten so smart about money matters?
There’s a healthy kind of insecurity. That’s the kind that keeps you pushing, pushing, pushing. I’ve got plenty of that. I push hard. You could hand me a million dollars and I would continue to push hard. Pushing hard is a price that I am almost always willing to pay. It’s fun to push hard. It keeps the blood moving. That’s why I don’t see the push-urging insecurity as a Goon Insecurity.
I’ve got some of the Goon insecurity too. I remind myself that, had the idea of pursuing financial freedom never entered my mind, I would have a steady paycheck today but less in the way of savings. I would be better off in one way and worse off in another way. Overall, I would probably be a bit worse off. Bringing that reality to mind eases up the Goon Insecurity a bit.
Don’t ignore realities. That makes the Goon Insecurity stronger. Ignoring realities causes you to lose confidence in your own judgments. Properly so.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #3 — Uncertainty
Uncertainty is different than insecurity. It’s a broader concept. Live the good life and life becomes uncertain in all sorts of ways. You don’t have a regular schedule. You don’t see the same people every day. You try different kinds of work more frequently. You might move more frequently.
Like a fast dog that chases a taxicab, we are puzzled when our dream of catching freedom comes true. It looked so good in the dream. In real life, it looks like uncertainty piled on uncertainty.
Remind yourself that this is what freedom looks like in the flesh.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #4 — Old Age
If a young person were to take the advice at this site to heart, it would do him or her wonders. How often does that happen? Most of us need to suffer a serious life setback before seeing the appeal of financial freedom strongly enough to do the work it takes to attain it.
Those who are older get the idea quicker. It’s harder for them, though. They cannot pick up stakes and move as easily. They have locked-in responsibilities. They have spouses who may or may not get the idea as well. They have incomes less likely to rise significantly in years to come. They have fewer saving years open to them.
There are circumstances in which it makes sense to stay with the safe and steady job, dream be darned. Sometimes you need to make a compromise. Perhaps you can give on the big dream and construct a more modest dream to chase. I see nothing to be ashamed of in that. It’s good sense in some circumstances. It’s the responsible and even the charitable thing to do in some circumstances. You’re not letting the Goons win if you scale back your dream to a manageable size.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #5 — Inexperience
I sometimes wish that I had chased my dream when the thought first occurred to me. I gave it thought lots of time. i didn’t have the courage. Or perhaps I had too much sense.
It’s easier to take chances when you’re young. The trouble is — there’s so much that you don’t know. I feel that one of the forms of payment I received from my corporate jobs is that I learned about work and about people and about myself before I laid my own money on the table.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #6 — Failing Health
I’ve always been lucky in this department. It amazes me what some people are able to accomplish despite failing health. Perhaps carrying the weight helps them learn to run harder and to have confidence in their ability to run even harder yet if the need arises. That’s the impression you get from some of the stories you hear.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #7 — Death
Death to me is the ultimate motivator. People today hate the idea of death. People talk about scientific breakthroughs that will permit us to live for centuries.
I don’t know. I can imagine a Twilight Zone episode showing that this would not be so hot a development. I would not have taken the chances I took had I known that I had 200 years to write my book. Writing a book is like engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the devil. Why do it today if you don’t really need to do it for another 150 years?
I’m a reporter. I do it on a deadline. I always turn my copy in when it must be turned in, not three minutes early and not three minutes late. It’s a matter of professional pride. Reporters say that they hate deadlines, but they know that life as we know it would be impossible without them. I think it works that way with death, the ultimate deadline. God put it there to prod us along.
“Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return.” That’s one of my favorite slaps in the face ever. I think about that one all the time. People who say that religion is too mushy forget about the hard sayings.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #8 — Consumerism
I’m the least anti-consumerism of all of the anti-consumerism writers that I know. Consumerism is a drag because of the ways in which it holds people back from being able to live the good life. It has its place, however. There is lots of good stuff available for sale today. I don’t see spending as being bad per se.
Know the cost of consumerism. That’s the thing. If you know the cost of something and you make a conscious decision to pay the price, that’s one thing. If you tumble through life taking on debt and not seeing how many opportunities you give up by doing so, that’s a drag. Uninformed consumerism is the greatest enemy of those seeking to live the good life.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #9 — Lies
It’s not that you need more money than anyone else to live the good life. It’s that you need more self-honesty.
There’s safety in numbers. Those walking the usual path hurt themselves in lots of small ways and that can over time add up to some big hurts, but they do avoid the cliffs that await those chasing a dream mindlessly. You’ve got to be careful and responsible when putting together a plan to live the good life. You need to be sober.
Get Rich Quick schemes are everywhere. Our fallen human nature is drawn to them. They cannot get you to fall into the trap without first getting you to buy into flattery and lies. Insist on honesty. Especially from yourself.
Live the Good Life and Avoid Goon #10 — Negativity
Everyone opposes negativity. Me too. It’s not negativity to me, though, if you check something out and see that you are going to need to put off your plan to live the good life for another year or two or three or four. Acknowledging reality is not negativity.
Negativity is when you let a temporary defeat become a permanent defeat. My experience is that some aspects of your plan turn out better than you expected and some aspects of your plan turn out worse than you expected. Always remain open to restructuring of the plan. You let in the discouraging news because it would be playing to the Lies Goon not to do so. You respond with energy and optimism and creativity because it would be playing to the Negativity Goon to let a setback become a crusher.
Only the Death Goon is a crusher. And the good thing about the Death Goon is that he does not leave you anything to worry about when he takes you. When he takes you, he takes it all, the worry included.
Thou art dust. Thou art off the hook.
Except perhaps with the Devil Goon. That’s a different article.