Overcoming Trained Reflexes For FIRE

When I was growing up—and I think this still happens today—there were different types of kids.

Take something like Halloween candy. In the same family, you might have two kids of roughly the same age, a year or two apart, who go out trick-or-treating.

They each come home with a very large stash of candy.

Without parental intervention (which used to be more of a thing), one sibling gorges themself on the spoils.

After massive piles of candy wrappers accumulate, someone finally says, “That’s enough. Go to bed.”

Meanwhile, the other sibling has had a few select pieces and stored the rest away in a hiding place so their gluttonous sibling doesn’t sneak pieces out of their stash.

They will go on to have a few pieces over the next two months, sometimes throwing the rest out.

Then there are the young adolescents who, for one reason or another, find themselves doing work for pay.

One of them puts everything they earn into a jar, which eventually gets transferred to a savings account.

They are fully committed to the idea that they are saving for a future goal. Perhaps a car. Perhaps college.

The other young teen spends the money almost as quickly as it comes in.

There have been studies on this sort of phenomenon. The studies seem to suggest that the child who can demonstrate restraint goes on to have a more “successful” life than the gorging spendthrift.

Could be.

I can definitely see how the delayed-gratification person might find it more natural to save, invest, and reach FIRE than the other.

Which was I?

I was the kid who ate all their Halloween candy in one night if I could, and spent all their paper-route and lawn-mowing money on video games, toys, and whatever else I wanted.

What happened when I got older?

I had a hard time focusing on completing a college degree.

It took three years of putzing around to earn one year’s worth of credits, with a low C average GPA.

Then I “woke up” and got going.

I finished the last three years in four years (I had to take a year off), with a GPA of 3.65 during those years.

When I later received my first credit card, I ended up running the balance up to the max, asking for credit extensions to max it out even more, and paying the absolute bare minimum on the balance.

If they had been looking for a picture of someone who fit the “living paycheck to paycheck” label, they could have put a photo of me next to the definition.

I got a little better as I went along, but it wasn’t until I found the Transforming Your Relationship With Money seminar tapes at the library that I really began to question and radically change my behavior. (These seminars are the basis of the book Your Money or Your Life.)

Even then, I ran up a $3,000-or-more credit card charge to cover a planned family vacation that year.

So, it wasn’t an overnight transformation.

Which brings me to the core of what this article is about.

It’s an exploratory idea, but I think my motivation for Autonomy and Escape from the Grind is related to my earlier, childish behavior.

This is not a moral judgment or a condemnation of either the behavior or the motivation.

Think of it this way.

Let’s take three continuums of preferences to illustrate how this might show up in other ways.

The first continuum has single-mindedness on one end and absolute variety on the other.

Do you prefer to be hyper-focused and deep-dive on one or two endeavors at any given time?

Or do you get easily bored and distracted, or even burned out, and need a variety, or portfolio, of projects, activities, and goals to pursue?

The second spectrum has internal validation on one end and a desire for external validation on the other.

Do you prefer to do things for your own reasons, for your own satisfaction and fulfillment?

Or do you want what you do to be recognized and praised by others?

The third continuum has structure and routine on one end and spontaneity and serendipity on the other.

Do you prefer organization over chaos and routine over going with the flow?

Or do you like to wake up and approach each day as a blank canvas, following your instincts and predilections?

Alright, given those three spectrums, let’s think about working for a living as part of a company or organization before you reach FIRE.

Who typically runs the organizations you are part of during your career?

What types of cultures are they promoting?

Do they want to Escape the Grind, with their time freedom belonging to them and them alone?

Do they want to connect with others and contribute to the good of society?

Do they want to demonstrate their superior competence and have an impact that wins in the arenas of ideas and markets?

Are they deep divers, or do they relish multiple projects and objectives?

Do these organizations emphasize individual satisfaction or external judgments of merit?

Do these organizations relish play and exploration, or do they want structure and routine to rule the day?

What about you?

Which are your preferences?

In the work and career you are engaged in currently, as you work your way toward FIRE, how are you expected to be within the organization providing your paycheck?

How do you want to be post-FIRE?

I have some ideas about my own life and what I’ve learned,

so we’ll continue this exploration in future articles.