Every December, the Ghost of Christmas Future pays me a visit. Usually, he’s carrying a spreadsheet and pointing toward a distant retirement date, and I spend my time calculating if I’ve “saved enough” to retire in the near future.

 But this year, the vision he showed me hit me a little differently. 

It wasn’t about the money; it was about the person that I have become while I wait for the money to cross the goal line. I didn’t like how much of a focus I have given it.

So this year I am looking forward to next year in a new way. I have a new resolution. It centers around a term I heard lately in living my “Best Life”

The one benefit of listening to so many podcasts and reading so many blogs on FIRE is that it constantly brings up how other people live, or plan to live, post FIRE. The Best Life topic kept coming back over and over in the last month. It’s not a new topic, but it is exactly the right topic for me right now. It erases one of my typical year end resolutions. 

First, I want to put down the one goal that is not a real goal: The FIRE goal.

FIRE is a tool. FIRE is not the goal. 

It is a tool to buy time. It is not a date. It is not a number. Financial Independence (FI) is meant to improve my life—and when it becomes just a number on a spreadsheet or a circle on a calendar, I am doing it wrong.  Being FI is only a small part of making changes.

I have been too focused on “The Number” or “The Date.” I feel at times like I’ve put on the Vader mask. I’m cold, I’m mechanical, and I’m just a cog in a corporate machine, counting down the days until I can finally take the helmet off and breathe. But the truth is, if I wait until I’m 100% retired to be the dad, husband, or friend I want to be, I’m basically living on the dark side for no reason.

Even a Sith Lord can step away from the desk to throw a snowball. The work—the Empire, the spreadsheets, the 9-to-5—will still be there when I get back inside. It is only part of who I am.

My goal has to be about time. Specifically, time to do what I want.

When we focus on a “finish line,” we fall into the trap of putting off the changes we want until we get there. My subconscious definitely works this way, and I can honestly say I’ve fallen into that trap. I need to be making changes now to make my life better and make myself happy. Period. Money is just the enablement for that, nothing more. More money is just more time. I have time now

I should be making these changes today and course-correcting as I go. I need to discover what makes me content and just do it. Leaving my job should be about needing the time to do those things; the job should go away only when it gets in the way of life.

For example: If I need a morning exercise routine, I should just set my schedule and go. If work gets in the way? I reduce my hours by 90 minutes a day. If the company doesn’t accept that, then it’s a sign that it’s time to leave.

The same goes for my kids. I want more quality time with them, and that has nothing to do with work. I shouldn’t wait for some arbitrary date to have more time; that time should start today. Putting it off by six months until I “have more time” just means I lose six months of the very little time we have left under the same roof. I’m fooling myself if I think the day I retire is the day I suddenly start spending an hour of quality time with each kid. It doesn’t work like that.

the high cost of waiting for the date to play is not worth it

It’s a progression. It’s about improving little by little. It’s about being conscious. It is not a date.

It is so easy to focus on the black and white—the “all or nothing” plan. That plan becomes a trap, an excuse. Life needs to be more gray. It needs flexibility. Work should fit around your life, not the other way around. Only when the conflict becomes too large does one of them need to be let go. Lately, everything for me has been an “Or.” It needs to be an “And.”

The term “Best Life” keeps circling back for me. It is made up of Health, Wealth, and Connections. Those are the pillars. With FIRE, it’s so easy to obsess over the Wealth pillar that you let the other two crumble.

Padme naturally looks at life from this angle more than I do. I am a world-class procrastinator; I’ll do anything and everything “later” when I “have more time.” But because her time is limited, she puts it on the calendar and gets it done. Busy people get busier, while I just look for excuses to waste time.

I know this blog can seem bipolar. I’m constantly switching from “This is my date to get to retire” to “What do I actually want in life?” I go back and forth. I don’t have it figured out. But that’s the purpose of writing this. It’s to show the emotional struggle of this stage.

It. Is. Not. Easy. Putting it on the page helps me figure out what I’m actually thinking. I try to stay unfiltered because the process of making big life decisions is messy. I don’t have the answers, but I’m trying to find them. The blogs I enjoy most are the ones that show the human side of the problem. If someone tells you they have the one true answer for your life, run. We have to figure it out for ourselves. Plans change. Life changes.

If letting you peek behind the curtain while I wrestle with this helps you, that’s great. But honestly? It’s even better if it helps me.

I’m choosing “And” instead of “Or.” I’m keeping the career for now, but I’m taking the helmet off today. It’s about choosing a goal for my Best Life today. I do not need to wait until I retire.

Last night we picked a family movie to watch—Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle. Fittingly, one of the closing quote of the movie resonated:

“This is what you should be thinking about: Who you are… in this moment of time… and who you want to be. You get one life. You decide how you’re gonna spend it.”

Seems fitting for this year.

Happy New Year – Be good to yourself this year