Life and Space-Flight
“The barrier to our future is often the very plans that we’ve created to get there.”
– Craig Lounsbrough
Today, I find myself at a cross-roads in not only my career but my life. I sometimes like to think of my life as a rocket and my life’s journey as the equivalent of a space flight to some far-off destination in the solar system. I am unsure of the destination in this analogy as death seems the only answer, but that seems overly morbid. For this reason, I concentrate more on the journey component of the analogy.
As I am writing this post in March 2021, we are about a month removed from NASA’s Perseverance landing on the surface of Mars. The rover was previously launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in July 2020 and traveled just over 290 million miles over the course of approximately 7 months. A distance of this magnitude is hard to even fathom. The idea that we can launch a rocket from Florida and it travel 290 million miles and land exactly where planned never ceases to amaze me. What also never ceases to amaze me is the math behind it all. I won’t pretend to begin to understand aerospace engineering, rocket science and the math behind rocket propulsion or rocket trajectories. However, I do think there are some interesting parallels that can be drawn between space-flight and life. Let me explain.
Small Adjustments Can Have a Profound Impact
Any space flight requires a calculated trajectory, and the margin for error is extremely small. The introduction of small change (inches in some cases) can have a significant impact to the trajectory of a rocket especially over a distance like that required to get to Mars. I think life is very similar. I believe changes to the overall trajectory of your life can be traced back to specific moments or events in time, both positive and negative. Some of these moments are obvious because they have an immediate and lasting impact. However, many of these moments are less obvious, and when considered in the aggregate, they can significantly shape your life. Put another way, small occurrences or events that may seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things end up having a profound impact on the trajectory of your life. Whether its life or space travel, altering the trajectory in just a small way can create large change, especially over an extended distance or time period. This brings me to the subject of today’s post.
Henry Has FIRED (Well…Sort Of)
“The only time you are actually growing is when you are uncomfortable.”
– T. Harv Eker
I am already three paragraphs into the post, and I have yet to drop the exciting news. Mrs. Henry says I beat around the bush too much in my writing and perhaps she is right. So let me go ahead and say it. As of last week, I am no longer employed.
Yep… You read that right. I am officially without a job. I guess I could say Henry has FIRED, but that wouldn’t be entirely true so I am going to stick to Henry has FIRED (Well…Sort Of). It doesn’t role off the tongue as well, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.
My departure was not completely by choice, but my employer and I ultimately mutually agreed to part ways ending with my formal resignation. It was time, and we both knew it was coming. I don’t want to get into all of the details other than to say that despite my shift in mindset (which I will explain further below), I continued to seek to perform at a high level. However, I also knew I had options afforded to me by the pursuit of FI. As a result, I previously decided to draw an informal line when it came to my work. My time is important. People are important. Relationships are important. There are areas where I will compromise, and there are areas I will not. In the end, my employer and I did not see eye-to-eye in several of these areas, and we chose to part ways.
The reality of the situation is still very real and emotional. I think I have experienced every emotion possible over the past few days, both negative and positive. Purpose and passion were driven out of my career a long time ago. Over the last several years, the hours had gotten longer, the work became more stressful, and the politics got much worse. In order to keep up, I found myself compromising on some of my core values. I did not like the leader or person I was becoming. This resulted in my continued realization that I was not happy at work. I was spending A LOT of time at work, and this was a big problem.
Despite my dissatisfaction, there was still a certain level of comfort. Comfort in the relationships I had created. Comfort in belonging to something bigger than myself. Comfort in the steady salary. Comfort in the known. There is a reason that nearly 72% of Americans live in or close to the city where they grew up. [1] Human beings like being comfortable. I like being comfortable. That underlying comfort is what kept me from exploring my options for the longest time. Then 2020 happened. It was the catalyst I needed. It was also during this time period that I realized another truth. Despite all of the advantages comfort can provide, comfort can also be the enemy of growth. I was not growing professionally in the way that I wanted to be. This was also a big problem. I will explain in more detail below how 2020 ended up being the catalyst I needed to will change into my life. My journey is far from over, and now I have the opportunity to adjust my trajectory and possibly even completely change my destination.
Adjusting Course to Pursue FI
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
– Sherlock Holmes
I previously touched on several moments in my life that I believe have shaped my view of the world and ultimately impacted my trajectory in life. Discovering and choosing to pursue financial independence would qualify as one of those moments. Once I discovered there was an alternate path in choosing to pursue early FI, everything began to change. The change was small at first. In my mind, we were simply adjusting our trajectory by a small amount to pursue an idea that, in hindsight, seemed so obvious. We began to evaluate our spending more consciously as we began to view money as a tool to achieving our future goals. We routinely began to evaluate each purchase relative to our values and time. We saved more and spent less. FI was our destination and we had adjusted and set our course.
As we continued our pursuit of financial independence, I continued to immerse myself in the world of personal finance, investing, FI, and FIRE. In addition to reading various books in these areas, I also read entire blogs of people who had also chosen to pursue FI. Some I read more than once. The FI and FIRE community is very diverse, and as a natural extension, those choosing to document their journey are no different. There are people of all income levels, backgrounds, and occupations. Many are still on their journey, but just as many have already arrived at their destination. Each person had a unique story, but they were all connected by a common goal. They were seeking to achieve FI. Now I was doing the same. I felt a part of something special. Pursuing and achieving FI seemed like the obvious path, but for some reason only a select few had discovered the obvious.
As we churned along our journey to FI, I continued to consume content in the space. I began to focus more of my time reading content by those that had achieved FI as opposed to those still on their journey. A theme emerged with some of the writers – they were so hyper-focused on the destination of achieving FI that they sometimes did not have a clear “why” when they arrived. Some had come to understand their “why,” but it was only after achieving FI and slowing down that they realized they would have gone about it in a different way. It was in reading these first-hand accounts that I began to see another common theme become clear. FI was not about money. It was about time. FI was not about the destination. It was about the journey and the options presented along the way. And with that realization, an idea began to take hold.
An Idea Takes Hold
“If you take an idea and just hold it in your head, you unconsciously start to do things that advance you toward that goal.”
– Biz Stone
Time is finite and not guaranteed. You should live for today because tomorrow is not guaranteed. You should maximize your time on Earth. I am sure all of these sound familiar and you will get almost universal agreement that there is truth in all. However, there is an unfortunate reality that many do not acknowledge. Your time is often NOT your time. The reality is that much of our time is spent working. Long hours and stress are often the norm. This is true of most of America. This is especially true of HENRYs. The hours you spend working are only part of the equation. When you aren’t working, you are often spending additional time trying to decompress from work. This, of course, assumes you can even stop thinking about work to begin with. You combine all of these factors, and many people never stop working. When we aren’t physically working, we are thinking about work. When we aren’t thinking about work, we are trying to decompress from work. The result? Your time is NOT you time.
I am confident many of you can relate. My point here is that despite time being our most precious non-renewable resource, we often spend it directly or indirectly working in some capacity. If, like me, your work doesn’t necessarily bring you happiness and fulfillment, you are left searching for something more. This is where FI offers an alternative. This is why many that discover FI including myself choose to pursue it. The pursuit of FI became the mechanism to take back my time so that I could spend it in areas that do bring me true happiness and fulfillment. FI became my destination and taking back my time became my “why”. However, something else happened along the way. Each day I was questioning the journey as well as the destination.
- What would I do once we achieved FI? What would be different from now? Could I change anything now?
- How would I spend my time once we achieved FI if it was now truly my time? How would it be different from now? Could I spend my time differently now?
- What would make me happy on a daily basis once we achieved FI? How would that be different from now? What makes me happy now?
- What would give me a renewed sense of purpose once we achieved FI? How would that be different from now? What is my purpose now?
These questions, and many more, weighed on me because quite frankly I didn’t have clear answers. Or at least I thought I didn’t. The more I challenged myself to find answers, the more I felt that I may be missing something. I thought the pursuit of FI was supposed to be liberating. Why did it seem that I had to achieve FI to be truly liberated? If FI was about the journey and the options presented along the way, why not consider available options? I had options, why not leverage them?
The Power of Options
“Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time.”
– Morgan Housel
Prior to 2020, I would have told you I was on my journey to reclaiming my time by achieving FI. If you asked me what “reclaiming my time meant,” I likely would have told you that I didn’t know yet. I only knew that I would spend more time doing things that make me happy because FI provided options. At this point, achieving FI was just as much the focal point as it was the ultimate destination. I was not considering the journey. FI was my Mars, and I was hurdling toward it with arguably no plan of what I was going to do when I got there. Then 2020 happened, and changed everything.
I, like much of the world, was forced to work from home due to the Pandemic. Long hours at work were always a norm, but without clear boundaries, I spent even more time working. My baseline level of stress increased in conjunction with the longer hours. At the same time, Mrs. Henry and I, like many others, had to navigate remote learning with our children. For most of the year, we did not travel or really go anywhere. It was just me, Mrs. Henry, and our children. Like many families, we struggled. However, like many families, we also grew closer as a family. Although 2020 was one of the most challenging years of my life, it also was one of the best. Our family spent more time together than any previous point in time. We found new ways to spend time together and entertain ourselves. I began working out regularly again. I read more. I started this blog to document our journey to FI and share with others the concepts, tools, and techniques utilized to get there. Mrs. Henry decided to start a small business.
2020 was a year of change and growth for the Henry household. Our pursuit of FI was no different. That idea that had previously taken hold was continuing to grow. With our high savings rate and steadily increasing investment account balance, I began to see FI as more than a destination. Why did I have to reach FI to reclaim my time? The pursuit of FI in itself created options that did not previously exist. 2020 was the year of time. More time working yet more quality time with family. More time together as well as more time alone. More time to learn and grow. More time to reflect. More time to question. I began considering my options, and the options excited me.
It was also around this time that I began to realize that by some definitions we had already achieved Coast FIRE. Coast FIRE is defined differently by different people. However, if you recall from my Types of Fire Post, I define Coast FIRE as when you have enough money invested that you can achieve FI at a later date on a desired timeline without the need to save any additional money or make any additional contributions. Put another way, you saved hard enough and long enough that you no longer need to save to achieve FI in the future. You simply need to support your lifestyle now and allow compound interest to work its magic. Coast FIRE equaled options, and there was power in options.
Redefining HENRY to FIRE
“Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
– Dylan Thomas
When we started this journey, I self-identified as a HENRY (High Earner Not Rich Yet) in the pursuit of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). I have defined a HENRY from the beginning as anyone having an above average income. An above average income allows you to save an above average amount which ultimately allows you to live your best today while saving for a better tomorrow.
FIRE’s definition and meaning is not as straight forward. Sure FIRE can be formally be defined as saving enough money that at some point you hit a critical mass that is capable of sustaining your lifestyle in perpetuity. However, there is more to FIRE than just hitting a number. FIRE for me has never been about reaching Financial Independence and then retiring and doing nothing. If the FIRE movement has proven anything, it is that most do not retire in the traditional sense. The ability to achieve FI earlier in life requires certain personality traits. These are not personality traits of people who set a goal, reach a goal, and stop in contentment. For this reason, the goal has never been to stop working. I am the type of person who seeks to continuously learn and grow, and I want to be challenged. I want to move beyond my comfort zone. Work, in some capacity, is a natural extension of being challenged and experiencing growth. For this reason, FIRE for me has always represented the opportunity to pursue a different kind of work. Work with a purpose. Work fueled by passion. This leads me to end this post where I began.
Today, I find myself at a cross-roads in not only my career but my life. I now have an opportunity to consciously adjust my trajectory in life. I can make small adjustments or I can make large adjustments. I can take chances. I can pursue things that make me uncomfortable. In the end, it all comes down to options. I have options today that I did not have years ago. These options were created not by achieving FI but rather by pursuing FI. I am finally ready to embrace my options in order to write a new chapter. The page is blank. The options are endless. I simply need to start writing…
Regards,
Henry
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