Losing my job in December was quite an experience. While the sale of the facility I managed wasn’t withheld, I’d convinced myself that my job was safe.
Now, delusion is a whole other topic that deserves its own article, but suffice it to say that it took me until the very end to see the inevitable coming.
When the ax dropped and it was my head that was rolling, something rather unexpected happened. Everyone seemed to think I’d be scared or depressed…but I wasn’t. Isn’t that odd?
When they officially told me that they couldn’t find a suitable position for me I was shocked, but after it wore off, all that was left was…excitement.
The Deferred Life Plan
It took me awhile to put the pieces together, but I eventually figured it out – they were projecting how they’d feel if it were them getting fired. Make’s perfect sense. We all do it.
Unemployment insurance would never cover their expenses and they’d have to go look for a job in an economy they’ve watched flatline for the past decade and a half.
They had car loans, student loans, mortgages, and consumer debt to pay on every month. If they lost their jobs, they’d be screwed. Seeing me lose mine probably struck a little too close to home.
Those concerns did occur to me with a brand new mortgage and student loans still in deferment but I’ve never had the need or even desire for a new car, a big house, or expensive things.
What I have instead is an intense need for self-knowledge, personal freedom, and financial independence. That’s what calms the desire for all those things.
It’s not that I wouldn’t like to have them. It’s that they can’t even compare to the happiness I get from knowing that I am the only one that gets to decide how I will live each day.
It’s an assumption, but I suspect this is really what most people want but can’t see how to achieve it.
Those are long term goals and they’re really hard to envision and quantify. It’s especially true when you’re young, so they go by the wayside and we give into the unnecessary risk of lifestyle inflation – the more we make, the more we spend.
When your basic needs are met for $1,000/month, but you have money left over, it’s easy to find more things you “need” without a clear picture of what you want your life to look and feel like. Consuming turns into an escape tactic to relieve the stress of really organizing your priorities.
Your friends buy cars, boats, houses, and toys, and that’s a lot easier than planning your future, so you follow suit.
It’s the deferred life plan.
Acquiring this kind of lifestyle when you’re young is even more dangerous. Not only do you miss out on the best opportunity you’ll ever have to secure your future, you develop a habit that becomes harder and harder to break as you get older.
Don’t get me wrong – if cars, boats, houses, and toys are what you really want out of life, then you should have them. But don’t you think that should be your own conscious decision rather than someone else’s choice for you?
How Do You Want to Feel?
If being young and making a plan for exactly what you want your long term goals to be is overwhelming, consider this:
Don’t make a plan. Just listen to yourself.
Even the most remarkable people in the world had no idea what they really wanted to accomplish when they were 25. What they knew is how they wanted to feel.
Take a second to think about the kinds of feelings you want to experience in life. This is a lot easier than figuring out exactly what you want to do.
When you’re certain about how you want to feel, what you should do to feel that way starts to take care of itself.
Like I mentioned, self-assured and independent is what I really want to feel in life. Real confidence and freedom. Not the kind I’m told I already have. Freedom from want, freedom from debt, freedom to live how I see fit. So that’s what I pursue.
I could keep worrying about all of society’s boxes I don’t fit into, but that doesn’t feel like independence to me, so I keep doing my own thing.
I could have bought a big house, but an overbearing mortgage doesn’t feel like freedom either, instead a modest home in town keeps costs low.
I could have cable TV with hundreds of channels, but an addiction to sitcoms is a lot less appealing than an addiction to creativity that keeps me writing articles, crafting songs, and making art.
I can have pretty much anything I want, but when I think about how I want to feel, I realize I don’t actually want much.
Now, the desire for personal freedom has driven me to give up my old corporate life and try again.
Starting a business in a bad economy while you’re unemployed is considered risky, if not down right crazy, by most. But that’s okay because the feeling that drove me to start over is the same feeling that drove me save half a year’s worth of expenses while I was working.
When I was saving like crazy, I didn’t know what the plan was, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, I know exactly what that money was for. But, more on that later.
Feelings are powerful things. Let them guide you.
Now your turn: What feelings do you want to experience in life? What actions naturally connect themselves to those feelings?
Also, head over to Riskology to take a look at the original concept for this post.