Can FIRE Buy You Inner Tranquility?
It’s Saturday.
Ahh… Saturday.
I used to love Saturdays when I was working a traditional Monday–Friday schedule.
Friday? Great.
Sunday? Eh… a bit of a mixed bag.
Because Sunday often came with a familiar companion:
The “Sunday scaries.”
That low-level hum of dread.
Sometimes mild. Sometimes… not so mild.
Maybe you don’t know that feeling. If so, congratulations—you’ve lived a blessed life.
But Saturday?
Saturday was different.
Saturday was rest.
Relaxation.
Recreation.
Rejuvenation.
In a word?
Tranquility.
At least, that’s what it felt like.
Because lurking just one day away was the return to:
The rushed morning routine.
The commute.
The fluorescent lights.
The meetings.
The… let’s call it “structured socialization.”
Some great people, yes.
Also some people where, if I passed them on the street, I’d happily keep walking… but sitting in a 60-minute meeting together?
I’ll take a hard pass on that, thank you very much.
And underneath all of that… there was a deeper fear.
What if I lose my job?
Then what?
Now—this is where FIRE enters the picture.
Because achieving FIRE does solve that problem.
That particular fear?
It’s gone.
And with it, a significant amount of inner tranquility shows up.
But here’s the interesting part:
It doesn’t remove all the fears.
At least, it didn’t for me.
Which tells me something important:
This isn’t just about money. It’s about something deeper.
Because inner turmoil doesn’t start with your job… and it doesn’t end when your job goes away.
It just changes form.
For me, in grade school? It showed up as concerns about:
Report cards. Fitting in. Not looking like a fool.
When I was in college?
“Can I actually do this?”
“Do I have enough time?”
“How am I going to pay for this… and eat?”
Adulthood?
Career. Money. Identity. Stability.
Different stages but the same underlying pattern.
Which is a good place to reintroduce an idea I’ve been weaving in here:
Personal myths.
If the goal of the Highway to Yeah is to move from dread and tension… toward excitement and inner tranquility…
Then understanding your personal myths can help.
(Alongside things like FIRE, which helps create the external conditions.)
At a simple level: A personal myth is a story you use to make sense of your life.
Not just something you tell—but something you live inside of.
And here are two ideas that matter when you start paying attention to them:
First:
A myth isn’t just a story.
It’s a way of seeing.
The images that show up in your mind—dreams, daydreams, active imagination—aren’t random.
They reflect how you experience yourself and the world.
In a very real sense…
You are your images.
Second:
You’re not just one character in one clean, linear story.
You’re… a cast.
Multiple characters. Multiple drives. Multiple perspectives.
Sometimes they are aligned.
Often not.
As the saying goes—famously echoed by Bob Dylan in his 2020 release:
“I Contain Multitudes”—
Well… there you go.
That is the point. I do. You do. We all do.
And those “multiple characters”?
They tend to organize themselves into different mythic storylines.
Which often… conflict.
Old stories vs. new ones.
Security vs. freedom.
Caution vs. risk.
Comfort vs. growth.
Sometimes it can feel like two different lives pulling in opposite directions.
At other times?
It’s all contained in a single image or a single story. A single tension you can’t quite resolve.
Here’s a simple example from my own life:
The Tortoise and the Hare.
I’ve known that story forever.
And somewhere along the way, I internalized something:
I’m the tortoise.
I am naturally slow.
Naturally cautious.
Maybe even a bit plodding.
But I am steady.
I am determined, perhaps even relentless at times.
And with a quiet belief in the background:
“I’ll get there. I will win the race. Eventually.”
That story has served me well. It brings acceptance (which will be discussed in future posts).
It’s also limited me. And I have had to decide if I am okay with those limits.
That’s the nature of personal myths—there are typically both helpful and constraining.
So here’s where I’ll leave you for today:
Go enjoy your Saturday!
Find a little bit of the old-school, nothing-pressing, nowhere-to-be tranquility.
And maybe sit with a couple questions:
What story—myth, movie, fable, character—reflects a big part of your own life?
And…
If your job or your safety net disappeared this week...
What would you actually do?
Don’t run away from the fear, face it.
The more clearly you see the story you’re living…
The more choice you have in how it unfolds.
You will be better prepared if this did happen.
And you will likely never experience the “worst case” scenario you imagine.
Be brave.
You are going to win.
I know it.