Learning from Early Retirement Blogs

Recently, I have been constantly educated by popular early retirement blogs (especially, Early Retirement Extreme, Brave New Life, etc…) sent by my husband on a daily basis. Whenever I read their blogs, I cannot stop admiring their special /revolutionary (if these words cover the true meaning of braveness and awareness) mindset. What they try to say and show through their own life is so real that it doesn’t seem to be realistic in our consumerism society but I believe the principle shouldn’t be overlooked.

 

This morning, as a very normal way to start my day at work, I flipped through some interesting stories on the web and I learned about a girl who escaped from North Korea and just started learning a real value of ‘Human Being’. She acknowledged herself as a brainwashed person. Very same moment when I read the word ‘Brainwashed’, I automatically thought about our life path. From the very early age, most of us were brainwashed into believing a ‘good ‘life path is living like majority of people. I have been following the scripted life path (as Jacob described from Early Retirement Extreme) without any questions. Study hard, go to a good University, get a stable job, get married, have kids, work for the family till the retirement age and so on… I was also one of the brainwashed people until we decided to have a 6 month break from the job and travel around world. Frankly, I was very nervous (as much as my colleagues were stunned by my decision) to break the ordinary life path (which believed as a ‘good’ one) and worried what if my decision could damage my life path. I didn’t feel comfortable to stay out of the comfort zone which was made by common perception rather than realistic circumstances. Funny enough, our special (abnormal) decision turned out to be the best decision I have ever made in my life. The unique experience woke me up to re-examine my life. Although I have been perfectly fit into the category of the ordinary (=the best) life path but I couldn’t stop questioning to myself about real value of working life. While I am reading these blogs, I am finding the answers that I have been looking for. The blogs make me feel comfortable by approving my thoughts are neither weird nor inappropriate.

 

One of the most important things I have learnt from the blogs is true value of time. We all know the time we have is limited and most valuable but easily overlooked and exchanged for money (work). The blogs teach me that I shouldn’t waste my time (life) for money (work) unnecessarily. ‘Less money (work) more time (life)’ sounds like a very sweet dream (=hard to achieve), but ‘more work less life’ absolutely horrifies me so I have decided to make my own life path to enjoy the true value of MY LIFE.

 

These blogs commonly talk about ‘Financial Independence (FI)’ and I couldn’t agree more about the importance of FI. How many times we had to postpone or withdraw our wishes because of the financial circumstances. My wish to create my own life path cannot be accomplished without FI and I am glad to know my frugal lifestyle directed me to step toward my goal.

 

What I also learn from them are many tips to reach simple living. Some of tips are quite extreme such as living in a caravan or not using heater at all in winter but what I highly respect is learning the beauty of simple living. Any reason, many people think that buying and having more (better) things can make life better so spend most of their life at work to make more money to have more things. Seriously, do we really need more things to be happier?  I rather spend more time with my loved ones and enjoy my time than work longer to have more stuff. What I learn from my simple life (which is still far away from these gurus) is when I have less, I have less problems and life gets far easier and more enjoyable.

 

What is enough for you? Enough is enough but we all want more and more. These blogs make me rethink about the real meaning of enough. If we don’t know what enough for us is, we never can feel the happiness. Next one we wish is always bigger than previous one, isn’t it? I believe that finding out what is enough for me and my future will truly help to design my own pathway. Do I have enough? Yes, I definitely do.

 

Long story short, I recommend you to visit these blogs and get a change to re-examine your life. As I mentioned earlier, you may think that their views are too realistic to apply to your life but you may find their eye-opening life approaches are awfully helpful to create your own life path (as they did it to me).

 

Believe me. No one can change your life unless you are ready to do so. All is up to you.