It’s Not About Money

It’s Not About Money

I know you think that’s it’s about money.  It’s not about money.  I thought it was.  In the beginning.  When I was tired of the everyday hustle and looking for a way out.  Financial independence filled the void.  If I could just save, invest, and build income streams then all would be well.  I could plot graphs, measure compounding, and guesstimate returns. The pathway was simple and clear.

A pathway to what?  A more difficult question.  We say we want to be free, but then we don’t really know what that means.  Free to do what?

Travel?  Watch TV? Visit with friends and family?

Financial Independence is Sorta Irrelevant

Well, not exactly irrelevant.  It is the minimum required.  The cost of entrance.  That’s right, it is not the ultimate goal but rather the first step.  You cannot find freedom or contentment if you are forced to spend a majority off your hours doing work that you find completely unfulfilling.

Getting to the minimum takes thought and concentration.  There is a learning curve traversed by hours of reading and listening to podcasts.  A learning curve that can start out as highly gratifying, but always threatens to push its ugly torso right smack dab into the middle of purpose.

Money can become purpose, but then we fall down the rabbit hole of the money mind meld.

And we know it’s not about money.

Autopilot

The goal is to have your finances on autopilot.  Each month money goes in and money comes out.  Investments gain and compounding occurs.  It is like the forever ebb and flow of endless river.  Always moving forward, unconcerned with all the excitement occurring on either shore.

The point is not to retire early or to never monetize.

The point is that those things happen as a byproduct.  An unintended consequence.  A happy coincidence.

It’s not about money because money ultimately isn’t the stuff of happiness.  it is the minimum requirement.  The cost of entrance.

The ticket to the big show.

Purpose

It’s about purpose.  And identity.  And connection.  Whatever those things mean to you.  I know what they mean to me.  It has taken forty odd years and lot’s of failure to get  there.  But I continue to progress.  We all continue to progress.

Can you embrace that progress? Can you cope with the fact that your unique purpose, identity, and connections may change drastically over the years?

That’s Ok.  It’s called evolution.

You evolve when you accept that this is an uphill battle where you lose more than you win.  And in the end you might only have a modicum, a small inkling, of what your true purpose is.

That’s OK too.

It’s not about money.  No one on their death-bed ever lamented that their bank account wasn’t just a few cents higher.  They mourned over dreams unfulfilled, relationships gone awry, and loves lost.  But they don’t bemoan their financial situation.

Not at the very end.

Evolution

If we are lucky, we evolve.  If we started on this path to financial independence because we wanted to have enough money, then hopefully we have ended in a much different place.   A place where financial freedom was the first stepping stone to something much better.  Much greater.

It’s not about money.  It’s about life.

What are you evolving too?

What plans will being financial independent help you fulfill?

How will you fill the void when you can no longer stuff money down into it?