Discover insights from the brilliant mind of Vicki Robin, a prominent figure in the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) community, as she delves into the concept of Financial Independence (FI). Allow yourself to absorb her wisdom and apply her teachings to your own journey towards achieving FI.

The Financial Independence (FI)  journey is a heuristic device used to map it onto your own life journey. It involves getting started on the FI path, finding allies, identifying the goal, and passing through a portal into the unknown. Challenges and shame are associated with this journey, you struggle to orient yourself to the new landscape.

The Second Quadrant of this journey is the FI journey (you achieve it), which involves sleeping, watching TV, reading books, taking up hobbies, and usually teaching others about the process. After they have their credit, they realized that there is a greater world outside of money and activities. They realized that the reason they can do this is due to the global economy – the purchasing power parity, privilege, poverty etc., around the world. You widen your frame beyond your personal life.

The Third Quadrant is the identity crisis of it’s not about me anymore, it’s about how I can help. This is not a necessity in the journey, rather it’s just what’s possible for you. The realization that there is something deeper in this whole thing than just being a blogger or making some extra money. We realize that our life is part of the whole.

The FI path is a way to accumulate enough wealth to be able to live on passive income. It is about waking up and taking agency in life, such as getting out of the financial game, making the right choices and doing the right things to achieve your FIRE goal. All of these paths will lead to questions of who you are, who your people are, what you are here for, where you belong, and how much is enough. In that sense, work is natural to us & should not be taken away from us (but it should somehow be associated with your true self – your own philosophical base and creativity. Your heart should respond to it positively and joyfully!).

The work of our existence is to metabolize our energy and make it into something worthy, often contributing to the lives of other people – making things better for other people. Sociopaths may want to make it better for themselves, but most of us are social creatures who are designed to work for the benefit of all.