As a society we have been indoctrinated into believing that we need to work most days of a week and somehow groomed into some sort of modern slavery: we live to work and not work to live.
To reinforce this conduct in us, we are constantly bombarded by effective advertising making us want more of everything: a newer jacket, a bigger TV, a better car, a more fabulous house with the promise that it will make us happier. Unfortunately, only to become more and more slave of our dependency from our job. We seek more and more material things that bring us a temporary happiness and in doing so we lose the true meaning of life. But by working 48 or so hours a week and by spending a huge lump sum of what we earn on paying off for the material things we own, are we even really free?
And isn’t it even strange how we seem to live in a society that predisposes a set of pre moulded lifestyles? Is it really possible that more than 7 billion people in this world today want the same things? Not just in terms of material things but also in terms of, for example, a career, getting married, buying a house, starting a family?
Do material things really make us happy?
Does being “wealthy” and “happy” equals to having the ability to buy things and possess the most material things? Or is it a mindset whereby consumerism does not feature as the main component?
Is permanent happiness, unlike the temporary happiness gained when we buy new things, much more in tune and defined by the control we have over our time and having enough of what we need?
And if so, is therefore time, for instance the ability to spend moments of our day with our loved ones or the chance to be able to take a walk and enjoy the scenery or even being able to slow down and savour life, the new currency? But how do we achieve the balance between being time-rich and earning some money that will ensure us some sort of financial stability?
Is it possible that what we really need is getting a new perspective and re-tuning our needs? Do we really need all this stuff that fills our houses? Or could we learn to need less, enable ourselves to work less and become time-rich?
For some being happy means to be able to prove to ourselves that that we can have what we want. That we can have what others have or even have more. More stuff, newer and bigger things, buying expensive items and eating out on a regular basis to show our status. We even become masters at justifying expenses! We end up working more, often at the expense of our health, because we want more things and we end up trying to escape our daily reality by going on holiday telling ourselves that we have done well and that we deserve a treat. But a holiday is a holiday. It’s another temporary period of happiness.
The question really is this: are we truly happy when we buy more or, are we simply misunderstanding our own core beliefs and jumping from one act of consumerism to another as the latest temporary happiness fades off? Perhaps the answer is that we are looking for something more tangible than material things like our relationships, our passions, our personal growth and our desire to contribute beyond ourselves.
Of course we need financial stability and some sort of saving for a rainy day, but it is important not to let consumerism enslave us to work more in order to support a lifestyle that we don’t actually want or need.
Achieving financial independence
Often working more is not the answer to earning more.
Often, however, buying less things is the answer to financial independence and ultimately happiness as the new time currency and gained freedom enables us to have more connections with the world around us, to attain an enriched sense of meaning and more joy in our life.
Statistically, people who want less score higher in happiness.
The average retirement age is 62. Generally, many people choose not to work after this age because they feel they have done their time but also because with age our physical and mental abilities decrease making it harder for us to keep working. Ironically, people often reach their retirement age to find that their so much dreamed retirement plan is not going to go the way they hoped due to their lack of energies, illness or even lack of financial stability. Ever heard of people saying they will go see the world once they retire? Can you think of many 62 years old retired people going trekking in the jungle, hiking up mountains or sailing around the world? Of course some do, but doing some of these things at 62 is simply not going to be the same as doing them in our 30ies or 40ies when we have less health problems such as back issues, hip replacements, joint pains etc…
When we talk about becoming time-rich, we often also hear about FIRE. The increasingly famous “FIRE” acronym stands for financially independent retire early. This is because often those who have a goal of financial independence tend to want to achieve it earlier. The issue with financial independence going hand in hand with early retirement is that in some cases it makes people believe that they have to work harder and save more in a shorter period of time. However, as mentioned earlier, this is not actually necessary because although being financially independent means to be able to cover all of our living expenses, this can be reached by wanting less, hence having to work less and by learning how to pay for our expenses by investment income, frequently referred to as passive income. That way we can still enjoy life and we can also seek to enjoy our retirement dream while we are still young and healthy. This is particularly interesting when we talk about building connections and having purpose. A life without any type of work can end up feeling meaningless and vacuous. That is why it is very important to have a life-work balance and this is why it’s very important to re-tune ourselves in order to be able to see and snap out of the single shaped mould society created for all of us. The current “full-time work” concept is plain and simply a form of modern slavery.
The aim is simple: come to familiarize and understand your core beliefs and what you really yearn from life, learn to want less and appreciate what you have, enable yourself to work less and learn to cover your expenses with passive income.
Passive Income is some sort of return that people get from a pot of money that keeps on growing and founds expenses long term. It’s money earned with minimal activity through a variety of ventures which require little daily effort or upkeep on the individual’s part. This is obviously not something that can be achieved in a blink as a varied portfolio needs to be built, but it is nonetheless something only few of us can do. An investment of 100 pounds a month can go a long-long way towards achieving your financial independence.
Although investing in the stock market might not be the answer for all, it’s important to point out that while in the past it was something only the qualified and clever investors could perform, nowadays it is something anyone can easily do by investing in index funds. An index fund is a diversified group of publicly traded securities designed to mimic the performance of a market index. Although nothing is 100% safe when we talk about investing, it is a relatively safe form of investment that has steadily gained interest and respect in the financial platform due to the fact that they outperformed the vast majority of actively managed funds over time. Not a bad form of passive income!
Of course others might prefer to get their passive income from investing in rental properties hence by gaining a return from a flat or garage rental, from affiliate marketing or other types of online ventures, or from creating intellectual properties.
The importance of re-tuning ourselves over our financial needs to gain financial independence
I want to show you that we all have different ideas, needs and purposes in life and that breaking out of the mould is a good thing in order to unlock what makes us truly happy. I want to help you re-tune and I want to enable you to see what the important things that matter in your life really are. Finally I want to show you how to turn this into your advantage in terms of financial independence by starting to want less, having to work less and learning to grow passive income.
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| Disclaimer: Although at Wellness & Purpose you can find many financial guidelines to implement in your daily life to promote financial independence, in some case a one-to-one session with a qualified personal financial adviser is recommended to ensure that you make the best of the options available to you especially before committing to big financial changes or investments. |
