Diary of a future rentier (26)

Twelve years ago I went to a Caribbean island for the first time. Two weeks in the tropics, warm, doing nothing. This blessed time followed a long period of intense professional stress. I took advantage of these few days not only to rest, but also to take a step back from my lucrative activity. Away from everything, without a phone, without e-mail, it was the perfect time and place. I had already been investing in the stock market for two years, with no other goal than to have fun and try to make a little money (without success). The decision I made then would change my life.

When we cut ourselves off from everything and go far away, we are confronted with ourselves. We find ourselves. We no longer respond to the needs of others, but to our own. In a way, we become animals again. Our reptilian brain takes over. Physical needs become more important: eating, drinking, sleeping and ... well, you know what I'm talking about.

In short. Lying under a palm tree, I let myself drift away to my thoughts, not yet asleep, but not very alert either. I looked back with detachment on the last few months spent working like a madman. It all seemed so close and so far at the same time. Faced with my real self, there, under this palm tree, I told myself that this other me, the one who was running in all directions, was not really me. In the shade, under a light breeze, rocked by the lapping of the waves, peaceful, with no one to disturb this real tranquility, I found myself again. Hidden under this palm tree, problems did not come to me, and I did not go looking for them either.

This is how I came to adopt the "palm tree concept" which is close to the moral of the fable of Cricket "To live happily, live hidden". Applying this principle well is easy to do when you are on an island, it is much less so when you are in the professional world. Even if you try to be discreet, and not to go against the problems, they do not take long to come to us.

Still under my protective palm tree, on the road to Morpheus, and still amused by this other me being tossed around like a puppet, I realized that despite all my will, the concept of the palm tree would only really be applicable from the moment the wires were cut with the professional world. Before arriving at its moral, the Cricket tells us well "How much I will love my deep retirement".

So at that moment, and just before falling asleep, I made a promise to myself that stock market speculation was over and that I would invest only to become an annuitant. And that is precisely what I have been doing for twelve years.