Day #2: The 2 types of freedom

🎯 Freedom As A Goal

Example: “I’ll hit $1 Million by 35, retire, and do whatever I want to do.”

On the extreme end, if you subscribe to this style of freedom, you’re willing to do ANYTHING to get to your goal. We’re talking 80-hour work week, no vacation, lots of sacrifices on your social life and probably your health as well.

This is the birthplace of hustle culture.

People don’t hustle to hustle forever, they hustle to exit (preferably before 35).

You want to enjoy the fruit of freedom AFTER you’ve hit your goal.

On the other hand, there’s the other approach to freedom:

🌈 Freedom As A Way

If you subscribe to freedom as a way, the goal isn’t to get to a point of financial freedom where you can say “f u” to the world, the goal is to build a lifestyle with a level of freedom that satisfies you.

There are many ways to engineer this lifestyle:

• Get a typical 9-5 job with decent compensation, generous paid time off, location flexibility, and an understanding boss who values freedom and efficiency.

• Build a small/ boutique/ solo business where you only work STRICTLY 4-5 hours a day, with clients you like only and no intention (or desire) to grow BIG

• Take on a few freelancing gigs where you only work a certain amount of hours a day

Let’s be real, most of us won’t make a crazy amount of money working like this. A very few might, but I can guarantee you they’re the outliers. Most of us will be making enough money to survive (with some spare for traveling once or twice per year).

What you are looking for when pursuing this kind of freedom isn’t WEALTH in the financial sense, but in “LIFE” sense.

You want to “enjoy the process (of living)”. You want to create and integrate freedom in your life EVERY DAY.

🧠 The logic behind both approaches makes sense

“Freedom as a goal” is all about delaying gratification. Khổ trước sướng sau thế mới giàu (và tự do thật). Here, financial freedom brings about what’s deemed “absolute freedom”, which can be very true. When you have a lot of money, life does get a lot easier. You can make any type of investment or impact you want, travel anywhere you wish, or buy anything for sale (most things)…

“Freedom as a way” is all about enjoying the present. You’ll never know when you’re about to die, and you’ll also never know if you’re going to be free (or happy) once you hit your “Freedom Goal”. That’s why you choose to focus on the present and enjoy the journey, instead of longing for a destination that might disappoint you.

⚠️ The risks are also there

If you focus too much on the goal and forget to enjoy the process, you risk hating both once you hit the target, but don’t feel as fulfilled as you expected. You also risk sacrificing your health and important relationships that you might never be able to recover.

I have friends who have had heart attacks for working too hard, at 25. I have friends whose parents focused too much on building a business that they forgot to build a family, and are now incredibly wealthy, but can never be close to their kids. I have millionaire mentors who regretted not building a family.

If you focus too much on the way and fail to prepare for a disruptive future, you risk being in a big financial mess, which can lead to a lot of other problems.

The way you’re making money now might no longer exist in 2 or 3 years. The money you’re making might be enough to survive when you’re healthy and the political economy is stable, but Covid taught us that things can change really quickly.

The only constant we know is change.

❓So what’s the right way to think about freedom?

I don’t have the perfect answer to this question that will apply to everyone. But I think I’ve got an idea for my approach to freedom. It’s somewhere in the middle that I’m heading to.

To have a reasonable financial goal that will keep me “financially safe” from macro disruption (like a pandemic or a war), but also try my best to create and integrate freedom into my daily life.

As a relatively ambitious person who also values personal freedom, I’m willing to sacrifice a lot for the impact I want to make and the life I want to live.

Having a little less free time, saying no to more social events, moving to a city away from family for better opportunities… - These are some of the tradeoffs I’m making in order to approach freedom as a goal.

But as I approach freedom as a way, I will always protect my workout routine, I might say no to a few hangouts but will always put away my work and show up when my friends need me, I still call my parents twice a week. And thanks to my kind of work, I can fly to Hanoi and see them many times a year.

Relationships and Health are something I will never sacrifice, regardless of how important the goal is.

Freedom as a goal focuses on the outcome. Freedom as a way focuses on the process.

Why can’t we care about both - set a goal, but try as hard as we can to make the way we get there fun and sustainable?

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#wotn4
Bài viết thuộc thử thách viết 30 ngày của khóa học Writing On The Net.