What is Financial Independence?

If you polled a group of people who claimed to want to be financially independent and asked them –

“What is financial independence and what is that makes it worthwhile for you to make such a sacrifice?”

You’d probably certainly hear “freedom” as a response.

But, what does that even mean?

What is freedom?

In our modern, digital world, so many of us still feel glued to our desks. It doesn’t matter if it’s a virtual workstation. Or even if that desk is best represented as a collection of tools you’ve learned and feel bound to see through to the very finish.

It’s a persona. A pattern. We want to break free from this pattern.

It’s the absence of dictation. A timetable. An alarm clock, to be precise.

Freedom without having to follow someone else’s schedule.

No longer have to be concerned about credit card bills. It means having enough money in the bank to cover both your requirements and your desires.

Dependency-free living. When you’re suddenly jobless, it’s the realization that hits you square in the face. Someone mentioned on Asan Ideas for Wealth page:

…I discovered I can’t rely on my corporate job for financial stability after being laid off immediately after starting what promised to be solid, lucrative employment.

The concept that we can achieve a degree of independence we don’t now have is the initial spark that leads us to search for frugality ideas on the internet or why the words “money mindset” peppered throughout an interview stand out from the other reflections and catch our curiosity. We recognize something is missing.

Is this, though, all there is to it — escape?

Is financial freedom merely a form of escapism?

Is there a value in financial independence that goes beyond gaining freedom from life’s stresses, external direction, and the shackles that debt imposes?

Financial independence allows you to live a life free of difficulties. Getting it can help you break out from a pattern in which your time is manipulated and directed by others.

It may allow you to flee.

But once you’re there, once you’ve let go of those mental burdens, you’ll discover space. Emptiness.

Something is missing.

You’ve learned how to be yourself and comfortable in who you are, rather than being weighted down by the desire to suit your social role in the hierarchy you find yourself in.

You’re not bound by any expectations.

You can reconsider why you perform the things you do once money is no longer a driving factor in your day-to-day employment and how you occupy your time.

You’re no longer reliant on money as a source of motivation.

Financial independence allows you to go away from it all. It grants you “liberation” from a plethora of unpleasant aspects of life.

It’s the absence of these aspects of your life that can make you feel as though something is missing. It’s easy to see these as fresh gaps in life, new voids.

This is the most difficult difficulty for newly financially independent people to overcome. And it was unexpected.

What FI eliminates

If you look around the FIRE boards, you’ll see a lot of folks who are extremely affluent and “free” tripping over the holes that financial freedom produces. Anyone can feel uneasy when they lose their sense of self and identity. And it’s clear when you’re asked, “So, what do you do for a living?”

I also have a better follow-up question for you.

So, aside from work, what do you enjoy doing?

Don’t underestimate the amount of stress you’ll be able to remove from your life once you’ve achieved financial freedom.

However, it also generates.

We can consider the first stage of FI as getting rid of things we don’t like. It stands for “freedom from.”

That doesn’t imply you should quit your job and tell your boss to go home. It certainly can, but perhaps what you value and want to focus on is a different aspect of life for you.

You can also bend the work to better meet your priorities once you are completely confident in your lack of reliance on your employment as a source of income. You can push the boundaries and say no to unfavorable schedules, initiatives, or directives. You’re more willing to take a chance.

Surprisingly, many people find that simple modifications and increased confidence in the workplace result in a work environment they enjoy.

You’ll have more room in your thoughts, heart, and life to focus on the challenges and travels that truly motivate you with work on autopilot.

That is the freedom to live life on purpose. It’s about more than just avoiding dictation. It’s about what you bring to life.

Who are you going to be?

Someone once told me that every ten years or so, you transform into a completely different person. While that is scientifically correct in terms of our mass, what my friend was talking about was you and me as individuals. Our aspirations, passions, and interests.

What we were a decade ago is almost probably not representative of who we are today.