Today I feel like I'm emerging from a hangover of anthology. Here I'm talking about those that leave traces. Those that make you never the same again. I'm now living a waking dream. Or rather I'm waking up from a long nightmare. It's as if I had been in a coma for 20 years and I came back from among the dead.
20 years of work. And 20 years of blackout. A barely perceptible thread connects the me of today to the crazy post-teen of the time. The connection is still there. Everything is still there. There is only a dark hole behind me, a time gap, the one where I fell when I received my first salary.
Crack. Everything is said. First salary. First rat race. And the end of carelessness. But today, 240 salaries later, everything is clear again. I see all my dreams again, with the same eyes as before. I can almost touch them even now.
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. This maxim has never rung so true. I have let loose a lot of feathers at work for many years, I have sometimes eaten poorly, I have very often slept badly, I have carried heavy burdens on my shoulders, all without paying much attention to what my body was telling me. I have very often been at the limit of what it could bear. Too often. And on 3 or 4 occasions it almost gave up.
But all that is over. Not that I don't work anymore. That's for (a little) later. It's over because the dirty kid from back then is back. He's taken back possession of the machine and he intends to get it back in shape so he can enjoy it for many more years.
On the road to joy.
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Hello Jerome,
What made the “kid from back then” take over, why now and what will change until you achieve financial independence?
It has been a slow process that started about 2 years ago. Several important unpleasant personal events have happened one after the other. They have led me to question many points in my way of understanding the world. This does not change my quest for financial independence at all, quite the contrary. It is the only path that is correct for me. I will be back soon with a new series of articles dedicated to the Rat Race that goes in this direction and will shed light on the subject. The path to financial independence is not just a question of money or being a rentier, it goes much further. It is a philosophy of life.
Great insight into your journey, I would have been curious to know more about the type of challenges you have had to overcome in recent years, but if it is too personal I understand and respect your discretion.
What saddens me when you talk about these last 20 years is that I have the impression that the professional world is for you nothing more than a prison, a harmful and castrating environment, or in the best case scenario a bad age-old ordeal to go through and quickly forget.
Personally, I am very happy to one day achieve financial independence, but I nevertheless try to enjoy these years of work as much as possible and put things into perspective or even laugh at the worries or conflicts that I encounter. Nothing is black or white in life and crossing the desert can be magnificent if we try to enjoy the journey rather than clenching our buttocks and thinking only of retirement that will free us. I refuse to be a prisoner, I am free to make my choices and take responsibility for them.
And the path is so much more beautiful when sweet dividends fall from the sky regularly. No need for an umbrella!
I wish you a safe journey and enjoy the trip.
We are perfectly in line. It is the journey itself that is worth it. The 'retirement' itself is nothing more than a passage but not an end in itself.
I assure you that everything was not black and it is not still today. I have nice colleagues and there are even certain aspects of my job that I like.
However, it's all about quantity and balance. I find that my work has always spilled over too much into my private life. I work incredibly long hours, which means that I no longer have the time or even sometimes the desire to do what I love, with the people I love. It's better now than in the past, thanks to the financial independence that has been partly achieved, but it's still not enough for my taste. And when you start to taste freedom, you want more.