What’s So Great About Retiring Early?
Here’s the real path to freedom
For most of my life, I chased empty goals. I knew they were empty because once I achieved them, I didn’t feel any differently than I had before.
When I was in college, I thought I would be “set” the moment I got my master’s degree. I’d feel like I’d made it. I could quit worrying about my future and focus on the present. Well, that didn’t happen. And the pattern kept repeating itself throughout my twenties and early thirties: I’d reach a goal and immediately look to the next thing.
People often think that just because they make sacrifices to achieve something — they put in long hours, or give up time with their friends and family, or go into debt — that the end goal must be worth it. Retirement is the ultimate example: People rearrange their lives, devote themselves to the grind, and give up on things they want and things they love to bring themselves closer to it.
I admit I’ve felt the draw, too. It’s freedom. It’s the ability to afford your life without being tethered to work you don’t love. Who wouldn’t want to start that as soon as possible? I thought that if I just become financially free, I would somehow “arrive.” But then I started asking myself: Arrive where? To a place where I can finally give up on striving for more? What’s the point of that?
