Embrace The Fear

I recently posted about the medicine fear factor. Medicare, legal concerns, and worries about patients create a constant source of angst among doctors from the day they graduate medical school. Fear is a bad thing. Except when it isn’t. A lesson I am learning early in my financial independence journey is that in order to move forward as a human being, sometimes you need to embrace the fear.

We do not stop living when we reach financial freedom. We do not stop striving to build purpose and identity. Part of this process is claiming new projects. Learning new skills. With each new endeavor it is natural to feel a sense of worry.

Today I will embrace the fear.

Fear of Slowing Down

My first and most important decision regarding financial independence was to slowly strangle off the spigot of the accumulation phase. Not ready to go cold turkey, I have been progressively downsizing to early retirement.

I am letting go of responsibilities. Pulling back. Fading my way to imperfection. Day by day I can feel the absence of burdens release the tension from my shoulders.

But there is a price to pay. I must embrace the fear to move forward. Against all reason and common sense, I am terrified about not having enough. I worry about leaving the accumulation phase behind.

Yet to move forward in my path as a human being and to find meaning and purpose, I can’t shy away from this daunting task.

Fear of Diffusion of Purpose

When you have spent so much time defining yourself by your employment, not only economic concerns but also emotional ones arise as you pull back from your W2. The first way we tend to define ourselves to strangers is by our profession. This gives them a reference point to begin the process of judging who we are.

It also is an internal reference point. For the grand majority of us, life needs purpose. We need a focus to concentrate for both short and long-term contentedness.

If you espouse the financial independence lifestyle, eventually you must embrace the fear of redefining yourself.

Every new beginning is a chance for wondrous success or overwhelming failure.

Fear of Being The Novice

Today I will be giving a talk for CampFI South. Although I am no stranger to public speaking, joining a speakers bureau and talking in public is now becoming a bigger part of my Post FI lifestyle. Even now as I write, I have butterflies in my stomach. No matter how many times I do this, it will always be hard.

I am used to being the expert, not the novice.

Whether personal finance or taking care of patients, I pride myself on striving towards mastery. Who wants to begin all over again?

I do.

I can’t imagine a life, financially independent or not, where I wasn’t pushing the envelope on some level and continuing to grow.

Final Thoughts

Fear is not only a big part of life, but also of financial independence. Unlike those negative feelings of helplessness we feel when we are stuck in the daily grind, I try to embrace the fear of financial freedom. It’s a much different type of fear.

These are the mental pains of growing.

Just because you are no longer actively accumulating wealth doesn’t mean that you stop striving towards creating a better you.