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Toby being happy (June 2021)
Abraham Lincoln: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
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As I write this post on a beautiful sunny and a warm sunny afternoon in June, I’m pondering why someone is happy or unhappy. I got thinking of this important question that humans have been asking themselves over the millennia thanks to couple of very disparate things that happened on the same day.
On that same day, we went shopping for food at Walmart on a very busy Saturday. As we were checking out, we got the sense our cashier wasn’t having a good day.
She ignored our greeting for the most part, and she was curt in her reply of our parting greeting of “have a nice day.” She replied with a “yeah” to our greeting, which I thought was rude and inappropriate. It was bad manners and bad attitude all the way around…
It immediately got me thinking right then and there why she was so unhappy that instance. Was it the fact that she’s working on a Saturday when her friends are off, or is it that she has way too many issues (both financially, mentally, or physically) for her to enjoy her life. *Ok, forget enjoying life while working at Walmart on a Saturday. How about just acting professional and act halfway decent by returning a greeting at least?!?
We will never know why our cashier was so miserable nor can we actually do something about that. It is unfortunately, something we are seeing more and more of since we lived through a horrendous pandemic within the past few years.
I’ve read and experienced first hand how much more rude, selfish, and unmannered some people have become. I see less patience everywhere these days: on highways, in grocery stores, in restaurants, etc.
People seem to be more angry, unhappy, and unmoored at the same time. Why do you think there are more mass shootings this year, more crazy road rage shootings/deaths, revenge travels, and more suicides? Now, I’m sure someone smarter than me would point out scientific and medical reasons why this is happening more often since we lived through a pandemic.
I can’t back it up with empirical evidence or data, but I can at least tell from reading the news and personally experiencing this change the last couple of years. Pandemic has changed us in many ways. For some, surviving a pandemic has brought out the worst in us.
Maybe the fear of death when pandemic came knocking on our doors made us lash out at the world. Maybe we feel the world owes us something after making it through to the other side, scared for sure, but unscathed for the most of us.
Whatever it is, some of us have changed for the worse. I hear, see, and experience more and more angry, unhappy, and rude people the last 3 years. It’s actually a breath of fresh air when I meet a nice person, especially in retail and/or service industries.
Wow, how times have changed and not necessarily for the better…
The other thing that happened on that very same day we ran into our bright sunshine, happy as a clam cashier at Walmart, I also experienced one of the simplest yet happiest moments in our lives these days. That is, the simple joy of going home with a car full of groceries to fill our stomachs and a bag of food picked up from Chick-Fil-a!
My wife and I really enjoyed eating the hot, still steaming carton of large waffle fries while heading back to our place. We wolfed down the large waffle fries savoring its rich flavor and taste while smelling one of the best smells in all the world, that is the smell of warm fried potatoes coming right out of the fryer. Yum!
We ate some of those waffle fries dipped in spicy Buffalo sauce for a little extra kick, and it did wonders to our tastebuds! Wow!
We continued our culinary journey by digging into tasty morsels of chicken nuggets, fried in aromatic peanut oil. We again dipped them in Buffalo sauce and they were absolutely heavenly. We knew what happiness meant right then and there…
So, on a same day we both experienced a not so happy moment and a very happy moment all within an hour’s time. After unpacking our groceries and relaxing after the euphoria from eating Chick-Fil-a, I started thinking about the day, and wondered about this ever important question of what makes us happy or unhappy.
What makes us happy? This seems easy at first when we’re young, totally carefree, careless, and without much responsibilities to bother us out in the world. When we’re young, eating delicious foods, playing outside, hanging out with friends, listening to music we like, and/or watching movies would make us happy.
When we’re older (meaning adults with adult sized responsibilities like getting a job to pay for everything we consume, or taking care of our nuclear family), it gets harder and harder to feel happy. I would argue listening to music that really impacts us happen right up until we become adults.
I could recite entire songs’ lyrics I grew up with after all these years, but I can’t name many of the new artists I sometimes hear on the radio/streaming music platforms. I grew out of the phase when music was such an important part of who I was. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I can relate to others when they liked the music I liked. These days, there are more pressing things that is much more important than following my favorite artists or bands. Same goes for our love of movies.
When we’re young impressionable teenagers, full of uncontrollable emotions and hormones that are like a runaway freight train, movies we watch mold us into who we are. We emulate our favorite movie stars, act out scenes from our favorite movies, and/or go see movies on opening/premiere night on Friday nights just to say you saw it first.
Somehow, movies don’t quite have a hold on us as adults. Again, there are more pressing needs along with new responsibilities and endless chores to worry about. Being adults changes us for sure…
What used to make us happy, no longer does. Being adults really sucks the life out of us, and it seems we’re no longer as happy as we used to be. For me, I felt this exact thing coming about 2 years prior to my early retirement jumping off point in August 2020.
I felt my job crushing the life out of me, suffocating me. What didn’t bother me, certainly did. More and more people were ever more demanding and whining about everything the last 2 years of my job as an IT help desk support worker.
My adult life was somehow closely related to me working that job so I can afford my adult lifestyle, including a big townhome, 2 cars on lease, and endlessly buying crap which really didn’t make me any happier, not in any meaningful, or lasting way.
I was counting down the days when I can finally walk out of that job, and to retire from the rat race. The day finally came August 17, 2020! I said goodbye to my job of 13 years during the height of Covid-19, sold our townhome, then started living our early retirement as retired nomads.
After almost 3 years of living early retirement, there are things that make me (and my wife) happy. But before we talk about getting to that happy place, we need to first talk about some vital prerequisites!
Prerequisites
- A place to call it our own, whether that’s at an AirBnB, hotel, motel, or family/friends
We’ve been using AirBnB for about 8 months out of the year on average. The remaining 4 months, we’ve stayed at our parent’s place or our family’s place. It’s important to have a place to lay your head down, hopefully planned well beforehand.
Living like nomads isn’t much different once you get the hang of acclimating yourself to new environment real fast. For us, it’s the act of cleaning the place when we arrive at an AirBnB, and rearranging the space to suit our needs, to feel right at home.
Past winter (December 2022 - February 2023), we were doing a cross country road trip, so we ended up staying at motels and hotels. Same concept though. Hotels and motels still needed light wiping down of frequently used surfaces like doorknobs, remote controls, and bathroom faucets before we would settle in.
Whether we’re staying a night or a month, we want to feel like the place is ours, and therefore comfortable for us. We can’t feel happy when we don’t know where we’re going to stay, or don’t have a place to stay…
Lucky for us, 99% of the places we’ve stayed at were all safe areas where we didn’t feel like we were about to get robbed or mugged. One exception was in Claysburg (PA) where we saw police apprehending someone in the next building over.
We also saw another police cruiser stop by the same building few days later. It was one place where we didn’t feel safe.
Safety is perhaps a less obvious thing people talk about, but for us, it’s one important thing we look for when booking stays anywhere. The accommodation itself may look nice, but if it’s in a questionable area, we would most likely book somewhere else.
We can’t feel happy when we don’t feel safe. Simple as that…
This is obvious for everyone, but I have to add it to my prerequisites, as we can’t live without food & water! Now, there is a difference between food we eat to sustain ourselves vs food we want to eat.
Food we eat to sustain ourselves include your basic necessities like breads, cereals, protein, fruits & vegetables. Food we want to eat include anything else like seltzers/sodas/iced teas, snacks, candies, ice creams, alcoholic beverages, etc.
Regardless, food is non negotiable (even foods we want to eat), as most people can’t just eat the same thing every day purely for sustenance. Water is self-explanatory in that we all need water to live.
Bottom line: We can’t possibly feel happy when these things are not available…
When we’re not healthy, nothing else matters. What good is having food or accommodation when we’re so sick that we can’t enjoy them?
Being healthy is a prerequisite to being happy. We can’t be happy when we’re sick…
Now that the prerequisites are covered, here are the things that make us happy!
- Knowing our finances are covered each month
The ultimate goal of the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement is to accrue enough money to last early retirement and beyond. By saving up at least 25 times your yearly expenses, you can theoretically retire early.
Quick example: If you spend $25,000 per year, then you can retire when you accrue $625,000. (25,000 times 25 equals 625,000)
The other absolutely important thing to consider in this scenario is the ability to not overspend! This is more important after you retire as you no longer have any income you can count on.
Many people always ask us how do you retire early? The answer is always simple: Get your spending under control, save up religiously until you accrue your magic number (25 times your yearly spending), then you can decide to retire or at least start considering it.
For us, knowing we’re on track as far as our spending goes is allowing us to feel comfortable knowing we can maintain this nomadic lifestyle. Every year, we managed to balance our budget. When we went over our budget for few months, we would hunker down and spend less the following few months.
Like any good budgeting, it requires tweaking and adjusting to make it work. We found out the easiest way to not spend money is to just stay “home”, that is stay at an AirBnB (or our family’s place) and limit our entertainment to taking walks, going on hikes, stream movies/shows, or play video games during that time.
Like our parents always say, “whenever you go out, you’ll spend money…”. This is so true, as inflation is biting into everything we do these days from driving, eating, and spending the night (or nights) at an AirBnB or motels/hotels.
Having our budget balanced and knowing our finances are looking good is making us happy. We know what it’s like to try to make ends meet right after Christmas when we’re staring at over $3,000 in credit card bills for all the stuff we bought.
That feeling is something we never want to experience ever again! We want to feel we’re in control of our own finances, and not the other way around…
- Living the way we always wanted
Whenever we had a rough day at work, we always talked about getting off the rat race, to travel and to say goodbye to work related stress. All these things we dreamt about came true for us.
After close to 3 years of living our early retirement, we feel comfortable and happy living the way we’re living these days. We’ve visited so many places in the past 3 years, and experienced this great country of ours, traveling and exploring many wonderful cities and national/state/local parks. We are forever grateful these days…
We may not live an extravagant, fancy, or jet-setting lifestyle, but this simple lifestyle works for us. We can’t afford international travel where we need to cough up over $10,000 for a month or longer trips.
For our budget, we’re content with staying in the United States and travel by car to see this great country. We have no regrets. We can always visit Europe down the road when our finances are better thanks to Uncle Sam and his wonderful Social Security program.
We have many years to go before we can start tapping into that, but we are patient. Besides, we’re going to enjoy this journey we’re on today, right now, and not wait for what may or may not happen in the future…
We’re trying to live our lives like dogs and cats everywhere, that is, live for right now! They don’t have a concept of “tomorrow”. What is fun right now is the happiest moment, and what is tasty now is the happiest moment. For dogs and cats, a good nap is the happiest moment.
Humans (adults at least) have lost this precious ability to enjoy the moment. We should all strive to enjoy the exact moment when it’s worth enjoying.
There are so many simple moments we enjoy these days:
- Eating something delicious like the aforementioned warm and crispy waffle fries from Chick-Fil-a
- Settling in for a lazy afternoon nap on a weekday, feeling cozy and relaxed like our dog used to…
- Watching nature at work, whether that’s watching rain falling, or seeing a deer outside our AirBnB eating grass
- Washing our car, or cleaning our AirBnB, then enjoying the fruits of our labor
- Going grocery shopping knowing we got plenty of goodies to enjoy
- Digging into a delicious slice of New York style, thin crust pizza!
- Driving to a new destination, full of excitement and anticipation
- Staying at hotels especially after staying at AirBNB’s with its awesome foods (no need to cook our own foods and buffets!!!), entertainment, and everything we need right there including fast reliable wifi, no need to clean the room when leaving, and a nice view
- The slow rhythm of our typical day, when we would set our own schedule. We may choose to just stay home and do nothing, or we may choose to go visit somewhere or go hiking somewhere
- Trying out new restaurants at a new location
There are so many more of these simple yet awesome moments we enjoy these days, but I won’t list them all, as it’ll get boring after awhile…Bottom line: we’re trying our best to enjoy these moments whenever we can, you know, like dogs and cats.
In conclusion:
Being happy seems so easy when we’re young and are carefree. We could be enjoying a simple game of tag, or play anything with our friends, and we’re totally and utterly happy at that moment.
We don’t think about paying our mortgage, paying our bills, worrying about our jobs, or stressing about life in general. Everything seems so easy, fun, and happy at a young age…Isn’t it ironic we all want to grow up to be adults when we’re young? If only kids knew what that meant…
The feeling of being happy, in my humble opinion, requires several basic needs to be fulfilled as well as having finances taken care of, and living the way you want to. When all these things are fulfilled, we can be happy, like young kids, or like dogs/cats.
I truly hope everyone can be happy. Hopefully some of these things we discussed can help someone achieve their happiness. Thank you all for reading, and good luck in your journey of FIRE!
Jake
Wandering Money Pig
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