TL;DR: Guy has a great job for many years. Gets big crypto windfall at the height of his career. Now feels like his job is pointless and trying to figure out life. Boo hoo feel bad for him. I'm such an idiot.
I'll keep this quick(ish) for all of us short attention span havers. I'm 35 years old, I have a career in a field where I get to be a creator (sort of a YouTuber, sort of an artist, sort of a "travel guide", sort of a filmmaker, sort of an on-camera personality, BUT I have bosses telling me the kind of stuff to make). I was obsessed with this job/industry for the better part of a decade. For many years I got lots of travel, nice hotels shooting in foreign locations, eating nice dinners and lots of admiration and respect from peers and colleagues. I watched my income grow from mid $30k to literally 10x that over the span of 7 years. And, fortunately, I never acquired a taste for expensive things (save for some industry gear). So that meant I was saving a LOT of my income yearly. Well on my way to FI/FatFI before I even knew about this philosophy of investing.
In 2014, I discovered bitcoin. Please, please. I know that many here think bitcoin in a huge speculative gamble and after riding through a major UP and DOWN, you are preaching to the choir. Regardless, I love the idea of it and fell deep down the rabbit hole– reading and watching every bit of content I could find. Over the span of a year and a half I put ALMOST everything I saved into it– figuring my earnings would set me back ahead even if it tanks. (Again, I crazy/foolish I know). Long story short, the bull run hits in 2017, and I can't fucking believe it. Over the course of 6 months, hands shaking, I cashed out (after tax) about 2.8 million. I didn't even sell at the top.
Around this time, I was trying to learn how to "live off the interest", get off that crazy rollercoaster, invest RESPONSIBLY– I discovered FIRE, and was like "holy shit" this is it! I jammed everything into a simple three fund index-based portfolio of US Equity/Foreign Equity/Bonds.
I kept working (way less) for almost 2 years after that, but everything mentally changed. Suddenly, once the monetary excitement was stripped from doing work, all the other pluses felt...dull. Like, I can get "nice hotels", "lots of travel", "good dinners" etc... without a job now.
I hit 3.5 million this year and have been taking a break completely from work for 9 months now. Traveling, contemplating, philosophizing, visiting friends, leaning into hobbies/pastimes and honestly trying to figure out what my life means to myself and others now that at a 3.8% SWR, after tax, I can SPEND/DONATE $10,000/month forever. That's my needs, wants and then some. Why would I do anything that a boss/client/manager wants me to do when...I don't have to?
I'm at the same mental place a LOT of people get to when they hit their number. The problem is two-fold, One, I used to looove my job and it was a source of lots of excitement in my life. Hard to recreate that with just money, but I also don't feel like doing the work it takes just to get the high status stuff. Two, I don't feel like I deserve this at all because I got here earlier with a lucky bet on crypto. I would have definitely gotten here, but maybe in my 40s and I would have felt I actually earned it.
Basically, it feels like I used a cheat code on my life and now I'm not sure how to make it fun again. And don't feel like I "deserve" to FIRE. This is such an unrelatable problem, but I thought this nonjudgemental community might have some insights or nuggets of wisdom.
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