Coping With FIRE
Coping With FIRE: The Earn & Invest Blog
The Five Stages of Coping With Financial Independence
I stumbled and I bumbled. I staggered and I sputtered. And then I fell down a hole. A dark chasm. With neither sight nor sound, debased by tactile infirmity, I reached up with both hands and came upon Kubler Ross. A rope rising to eternity beckoning with evenly placed knots. A ladder with five rungs. I tried to climb through the five stages of coping with financial independence.
Would I ever reach daylight?
Denial
First came denial.
The accountant said that ten million dollars would suffice. And hey, I thought ten million dollars would be nice. Right?
The financial advisor shook the magic eight ball he called Monte Carlo and came up with: reply hazy, try again. The next shake was more like: my sources say no!
Denial was the initial foray into the five stages of coping with financial independence. Better to deny the issue than face it head on. There was no lack of accomplices in this covert failure. Family scoffed. Friends rolled their eyes and changed the subject. Quiet voices crept around every corner.
It couldn't be. It couldn't be.
But it was.
And then the anger came.
Anger
Anger, wrapped in the cloak of misgivings.
I slapped the advisors hand away from my wallet. The dirty pick pocket! I scolded the accountant and lowered her station to book-keeper.
Next I scoured through years of failed investments, unsuccessful ventures, and missed money making opportunities. The if only's took root.
If only I had saved more.
If only I had invested better or curtailed the hedonism.
A fruitless struggle for one who has already reached the desired destination. Better to bargain. Better to explain away.
And then bargaining caused the anger to calm to a slow burn.
Bargaining
The most silly rung of the five stages of coping with financial independence. I tried to bargain myself out of the reality of my financial freedom.
Maybe I set my SWR too high? If I changed to 3%, then I would still have a few more years. Wouldn't that be safer?
The one more year syndrome morphed into the first year phenomenon, morphed into just another reason not to stop working. Then I developed a ridiculous love affair with side hustles. I called them lazy to make the outrageous bargaining even more facile. I even endured the side hustle shuffle. Moving from side gig to side gig as if I was broke. As if I had no concept of enough.
Which led to depression.
Depression
The pit in which to climb out of. The emptiness left from the rabid beast of the money mind meld. Blinded by a lifetime of creating, it became hard to settle with the simplicity of just being. Depression, the fourth step of coping with financial independence, is not just a thing some random on Reddit is struggling with.
I repeatedly whispered to myself.
May you never reach your dreams. May you never stop striving. Not only to fail forward but to keep failing.
There is triumph in failure.
The great rumble of the underdog phenomenon bubbling into consciousness.
The sweet nip of success is easy to imbibe but ever so ephemeral.
Tired. So tired. I came to acceptance.
Acceptance
Mighty acceptance. The last rung that thrusts out of the pit and ushers the warming streams of sunlight. Gratitude and kindness. Community and engagement.
Full-time becomes part-time. Part-time becomes an occasional consulting gig. Minutes become lazy hours of to do lists around the house, books to read, and children to pick up from school.
The Vanguard app becomes jealous because of underuse. Rebalancing can wait till a rainy day. The condo can sit vacant for a month or two.
Wonderous acceptance.
Until...
The market crashes.
A new exciting job offer arises.
A bigger house comes on the market.
And then falling. Falling.
Falling back into a pit of denial.
And the process begins all over again.
Episode 149: Retirement: When The Real Work Begins w/ Grant Sabatier and Millennial Revolution
Want to Hear More?
In this episode Grant Sabatier and Kristy and Bryce from Millennial Revolution discuss life post FIRE and both the joys and unexpected difficulties of their new lives.
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