The Desire To FIRE (And When Achieving It May NOT Be Rewarding)

Most individuals today are obsessed with the goal of attaining the status of FIRE (Financially Independent Retired Early). This is a perfectly understandable aspiration to harbour. But we must be sure that we can digest the implications that come with achieving FIRE. Enough and more has been said about the kind of numbers needed to achieve FIRE. I myself have discussed the subject at length in a couple of my earlier articles FIRE Dissected : Financial Independence Vs Retiring Early and Retirement Investing - I : The Accumulation Phase.

But the finer nuances of achieving FIRE often go under the radar. Because of this people look at FIRE from a one dimensional perspective. This often makes people feel unfulfilled after retiring early. To avoid this anyone wanting to achieve FIRE must look at it with a holistic understanding. This would help us understand whether or not we are actually cut out for the FIRE lifestyle. It would reduce the chances of us feeling unfulfilled after achieving FIRE. Therefore today I am going to talk these second order nuances of achieving FIRE. I will also show why achieving FIRE without the right perspective may not be rewarding.

When aiming for FIRE, we must first know why we want to achieve it. Most people tend to have vague reasons for wanting to achieve FIRE. Some of these include :

1. I want to travel the world

2. I want to be able to do whatever I want to do

3. I believe in the FIRE movement

Reasons like this show that they lack clarity on why they are striving for FIRE. Such folks must introspect and try to understand their core reason behind wanting to achieve FIRE. They must also appreciate that achieving FIRE comes with its own set of demands.

This includes having to save anywhere between 2 and 3 times our monthly expenses. This needs to be done consistently for at least 10-15 years if not more. This would demand significant reductions in our spending and compromises in our lifestyles. Most people would find it very hard to do this. We must hence introspect honestly and decide whether we are willing to meet these demands.

Planning for retirement (normal or early) requires us to solve for two things. These are :

1. Money in retirement (how much money we need in order to retire at the age we intend to)

2. Time in retirement (How we will spend our time on a daily basis post retirement)

Everyone solves for money in retirement. But almost no one solves for time in retirement. This aspect of retirement planning would have nothing to do with finances. But it is much more important than solving the financial aspects of the goal. Studies on human psychology have shown that most individuals require two things to genuinely feel content with their lives. These are :

A. Healthy personal relationships

B. Doing something that they enjoy and/or are good at

For most of us our jobs play a significant role in fulfilling these needs. Therefore once we retire, both these needs may not be adequately met. Those in early retirement would also have a lot more time available to them on a daily basis. Individuals must therefore have a clear plan for what they would do with all that extra time.

For most of us the plan centers around one activity (say going on vacations or pursuing a hobby). But this simply isn't sustainable. The plan we come up with must translate into a daily routine we can follow consistently. Retiring without this may leave individuals feeling unfulfilled even though they can financially afford early retirement.

This is exactly what happened in the case of Ms Nupur Dave. She is an ex Google executive who stepped into early retirement and later regretted it. You can read more about her story here : Bengaluru Woman Worked With Google For 10 Years. She Quit On Friday, Regretted It On Monday

The primary reason why most people look to achieve FIRE is because they are looking for a way out of their jobs. This could be down to inability to cope with the pressures of a corporate job. In other cases, it could be to get away from a toxic work culture. Here it is important to understand that FIRE is one solution to the problem. But it is not the only solution. So we must not look to chase FIRE at the first such instance. We can look to try and achieve a better work life balance.

There may also be more constructive ways to deal with a toxic work culture.

It is only when none of these methods work that we must look at FIRE as an option.

We must remember that the RE in FIRE does not necessarily need to follow the FI. In other words financial independence does not mandate early retirement. Financial independence by itself makes having to work optional. Stepping into early retirement would completely be down to us. Early retirement would be rewarding only when we have either or (ideally) both of the following :

1. Mastery over the art of spending time with ourselves

2. A clear, sustainable plan for what we will do with our time on a daily basis post retirement

Until then it is important to remember that achieving FIRE must not become an obsession. It must be a journey that we embark upon. All we can do is work reasonably hard, invest as much as possible, spend consciously on reasonable wants and desires and understand what we really want to do with our lives. If we end up with enough money to achieve FIRE at some point in the process, it would simply be the icing on the cake.