Diary of a future rentier (42)

In less than a year, I have just narrowly avoided a burnout for the third time in a row. Fortunately, each time, I realize it just quickly enough to get through it without too much damage, even if I pay for it with very bad fatigue for several weeks.

There are many reasons. I can't blame my current employer alone. Of course, the pace of work is high, but I also set myself very (if not too) high goals. In my private life it's the same, I invest a lot of resources in my family and in my hobbies.

Paradoxically, my quest for financial independence, which is supposed to free me in the long term from the Rat Race, also tends to exhaust me in the short term. Paradoxically, this overinvestment in everything I do has also caused a total disengagement for several weeks when I am exhausted. My professional, sporting and worse, family life therefore also pay the price in the end.

The merit of all this is that it now makes me see things in a slightly different way.

First of all my quest for financial independence, even if it tires me at the moment, should not be questioned. On the contrary, it is what will allow me in the near future to fully flourish in what I really like to do, namely, in no particular order: writing, investing, playing sports and spending time with the people I love.

Second, I need to slow down professionally. This means not only being less emotionally involved, but also spending less time on it. In other words, I need to start getting it into my head that my job is starting to become a sideline. After all, that's what it's meant to be... before it ceases to exist at all.

Finally, and this goes hand in hand with the two previous points, I must now devote more time to what I like to do and not to what I have to do.

Only by applying these three principles will I be able to achieve financial independence with peace of mind.