I’ve long thought that I’ve achieved a relatively high degree of freedom in my life. Just a general sense of freedom is very important to me and it’s something I’ve strived towards for many years now.
It started when I was young, and I always wanted to start my own business so I could have the freedom that comes with being my own boss and choosing what work to do.
It was supercharged in 2019 after I decided I wanted to travel a lot more and started working to reshape my business to allow for that.
And over time, things paid off. While my business income flatlined at first as I reworked everything, it eventually picked back up and is now far higher than ever before, and it’s almost entirely recurring revenue for services we’re good at and can manage without too many headaches.
By early 2020, I felt like I had achieved my goal and could finally travel whenever I wanted. Obviously the pandemic caused some problems there but I was still right.
Fast forward to more recently. I am approaching the end of a year where I may not have spent as much time total outside of the country as my peak, but I have gone on more trips than any year before. Most of them with others who – like virtually everyone – have very limited vacation time.
And I realized I have sort of already taken for granted where I’m at. People really appreciate the very limited vacation time they have, as they should. But that whole concept almost feels foreign to me at this point, and from there I realized…
I don’t just have “a lot” of freedom. I have… Essentially the maximum amount of freedom. I’ve built a life in which I can truly be anywhere at any time, with limited notice, with essentially no consequences.
I’m not merely relatively free compared to the average person, I am exceptionally free. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met another person – including in all my travels – with this degree of freedom or even close to it.
It’s not that others couldn’t get to this point, but they don’t. I’d say very few would even choose it.
At my age, most people have children, which would immediately make it impossible. Those that don’t typically have frequent in-person commitments that would prevent them from traveling when they want. And those are things that people generally choose even if they were in my shoes.
The people that I’ve met that have come closest are generally young and single, working for a company or easy job that’s entirely remote. But they rarely make much money and are pretty limited in terms of where and how they can travel.
Even young trust fund babies typically have lots of commitments that prevent them from doing what they want.
I want to make it clear that none of this is a judgement on anybody else or pride that I have this level of freedom. It’s just an observation.
Looking back, I think I’ve valued freedom over just about everything else. I think if most of my friends felt the same, they would be in the same boat as me.
But in contrast to them, for example, when faced with a choice between money and freedom, I’ve chosen freedom every time. And I continue to choose it, basically every single say, spanning at least a couple decades.
The results took a long time to show but they are here now.
I’ve always valued freedom and sought a life that maximizes that freedom.
And I can now safely say: freedom has been maximized.
It’s a difficult goal to truly formalize, so I’m not sure I ever really did in writing. But it has always been there in the back of my mind.
Because it was never formalized, I don’t know that I ever really had a moment where I decided that I achieved that goal.
But now I’m looking at my life, and it’s pretty clear not only that it was a definite goal and that I achieved it, but that it has probably been my most difficult and greatest accomplishment thus far.
And now that I have it, it’s great, but… It sort of feels like… What now?
It was really fun working towards it and making progress, and now there’s really no need to go further.
I’m looking at my life and trying to decide what big, ambitious goals I should set for myself going forward.
I think there are a lot of directions I could go. I could target relationships, or accomplishments in my hobbies. Maybe I enter photography competitions with a goal of winning some. Maybe I finally put together some photo books.
Or maybe I try to write and record an album on guitar, or perform a big show.
I’m definitely working hard to achieve rapid fluency in French, so that one is happening regardless of whether I formalize it.
Or perhaps I put all my energy into my business or making money in general and an early retirement.
I have always wanted to have the option to retire at 50. At this point, it’s honestly looking likely.
I’m not sure that I do need to formalize any of these, because I’m looking at them and realizing that some of them are already in motion and I’ve always kind of worked towards them.
But on the other hand, it might be better to actually make more specific goals and work aggressively towards them. I am definitely more motivated when I can see the path to something.
In fact, in French, I calculated how much time I’d need to finish the entire Duolingo track and also thought through what else I’d need to do to achieve the level of proficiency I want. And I’m way more motivated as a result.
I’m in a brief lull with my guitar, but I’m realizing that I was playing a ton when I had the fairly nebulous goal of being able to play a bunch of songs around a campfire with my family and friends this last summer, and I did learn a lot of songs and was able to do that.
So goals absolutely do motivate me, even when they aren’t hyper-specific.
I don’t need to decide now, but I think I do need to set some goals and work towards them. That definitely gets me going.