While sorting out my childhood affairs, I came across a form that I had to fill out for school when I was 12. To the question "What do you want to do when you finish compulsory schooling?", I answered "I want to stop everything to make my plans come true". Unbelievable. I can't believe it. 30 years ago, I was already on the road to financial independence without knowing it.
Frankly, it's scary. Having evolved so little over several decades makes you wonder. On the other hand, I tell myself that it's cool to have managed to keep this pre-pubescent and rebellious approach to reality. Fuck... I didn't answer "I want to achieve my projects". No, I answered "I want to stop everything to carry out my projects". In other words, I want to get out of the Rat Race, there, as soon as compulsory education ends.
This is not what I was able to do right away of course, but a few years later, during my university studies, I got a little taste of this independence. And it is which undoubtedly confirmed to me that my pre-teen intuition was correct.
The road was very long, and sometimes even painful afterwards. After leaving school, I entered the harsh reality of professional life. I experienced in practice what the rat race was, namely working in order to be able to consume. I worked overtime, I buckled under tons of letters and emails, I received thousands of criticisms or disparaging remarks by phone or in person, I brooded and brooded again outside of working hours, I followed orders and counter-orders that led nowhere, I worked hours for projects that I already knew were lost in advance... in short, I was a rat that was piloted thanks to the power of money.
You will not have my freedom of thought, said Pagny. Throughout all these years, since my "declaration of independence" at the age of 12 mentioned above, until today, even if I have acted like a rat far too often for my liking, I have never lost sight of my initial objective: "I want to stop everything to realize my projects". If I have never had a vocation, never had a job that attracted me, I have on the other hand had from a very young age this goal of independence that has never left me.
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How mature, at 12 years old!!
As for me, it was around the age of 27 that I understood that I had to change my life strategy.
27 years old is already not bad. And if it can reassure you, it is precisely and only at this age that I started investing.
It was around the age of 15 that I understood that something was wrong with the classic system (Rat Race)... even if I didn't know how to express it.
So you are 42 years old.
Finally, you will retire like everyone else. You thought about it, but you didn't act. Given your speed of reaction, the low profitability of your investments and the few constraints you impose on yourself to invest more (= lower your standard of living, your consumption to generate more cash flow), you will never be financially independent...
Because you don't give yourself the means.
Franck, once again you judge me by reading only a few lines of some of my posts. If my articles do not interest you, you are not obliged to read them and even less to respond to them.
I will 'retire' around 50 as already mentioned. My profitability is good. I am also giving myself the means to do so. At 12 I obviously could not save and buy shares. I had to wait until I had finished my studies and found my first real job... Much later.
I am already reaping the benefits today, as I have gone from working 60 hours a week to 35 hours. The rest of my income comes from my investments. So I am already partially financially independent.