the hunt

I spend an awful lot of time on Zoopla for a guy who is in no position to move home any time soon! When people comment on it, I palm it off with an excuse, usually "I'm nosey and like looking in people's houses." Whilst that is partly true, really it's a physical manifestation of an anxiety of mine.

I'm very aware there are worse things in the world to be panicking over, especially right now, but living in the knowledge that I will eventually need to up-size stresses me out. Moving house is the single biggest pain-in-the-ass thing you can ever do. So to combat that stress I make plans, because when you break a big thing down into a step-by-step plan, shit becomes less stressful... most of the time.

I'll regularly run one, three, five, even ten year projections on how my life and my finances could look and where my housing situation fits into that. Perhaps I'll be living in a house in suburbia, or a flat in the city, or maybe a bungalow by a loch. How many bedrooms would it have? Two or Three? What about accessibility... how do I get to work? Are the public transport links good, or would I be better driving? How long is the drive back home to see family? And what about schools, a reputable vet and a supermarket for groceries. Oh and what about the local high street? Is there an opticians and a dentist? And what about resalability? Is the area desirable? Is the asking price reasonable? My inner voice spirals from pillar to post, chattering away inside my head. It's deafening and exhausting. Sometimes I need to physically say to myself, "right, stop! You are twenty-fucking-three!"

Messed up, innit? No 23-year-old should be stressing out so much about a house move that isn't even on the cards yet. Often I'll pin the blame for this worry on different factors of my life which have influenced my decisions in the past, or that will influence them in the future. For instance, if I hadn't discovered FIRE, I'd never have become this obsessive over my financial future. Or I'll say things like, "well if I'd been allowed the time to save for just a bit longer, I could have moved into a place with more space, a two-bedroom flat or even a house. Then it would have been a more long-term home, where I wouldn't be constantly thinking about my next move." But it's a lie. 

In the words of Jesse Jacobs, "as humans, we are wired to become dissatisfied." We are never thankful or appreciative for that which we have already acquired. Instead, we rejoin the hunt and this time we're out looking for something bigger and better than last time. It's that same itch which fuels a materialist society. Except when I'm "running my numbers", the itch I'm experiencing has developed into a full-blown rash. When caught in this spiral, I can spend hours planning my life before it's even happened yet! It reaches the point that it's not so much planning any more, as much as it is panicking; obsession even. Obsession over things I can't really control but which I try to control regardless. Like everyone else, I have no idea what the future holds. You never know when something major (like a global pandemic) is about to pounce from nowhere and knock you for six. So in pre-empt of things that may never happen, I work myself up into a tizz over completely hypothetical scenarios. 

It's during these episodes that I try to catch myself, slow down and cast myself back to something Dan Harris once said about "the utility of worry." He said, "One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received in my entire life was from a meditation teacher called Joseph Goldstein." In this example, Harris was asking Goldstein about whether it makes sense to worry about missing a flight. He said, "I was arguing to him that [Buddhists believe] that thoughts are just thoughts and that they don't necessarily have any connection to reality... but the fact is, if I miss my flight... I'm screwed." To which Goldstein replied, "You're unquestionably correct, but there's a certain amount of worry that makes sense and a certain amount of worry that doesn't. So on the seventeenth time that you're worrying about missing your flight and all the horrible ramifications, maybe ask yourself a simple question - 'is this useful?' " Harris goes on to say that "there's a certain amount of worry that is what I call, constructive anguish; and then there's useless rumination, which is just making you miserable."

Missing a flight is a pain in the ass for anyone, not least for a journalist. A missed flight for Harris could mean missing out on the story. So once upon a time, it was his worst nightmare! But worrying constantly about missing the flight doesn't necessarily make it any less likely to happen. Once you are in the taxi with your bag in the boot, there is nothing more you can do. My scenario is much the same. Sure I can plan for three or four different possible futures, going as far forward in time as I like, but that doesn't make them any more likely to happen. Instead, I find myself with a completed theoretical plan of how my life could unfold, yet I'm still in a state of worry for my future. Wasn't the whole point of starting a plan to help alleviate that worry?

What I realised is that my "useless rumination" is not just over finances and housing as I once thought. It can in fact be triggered by any scenario in which I feel I am not in control. I crave control for that which I simply cannot and so I spiral into a storm of worry, of overthinking ways in which I can control the uncontrollable. Recently I have been finding myself in this cycle of worry on a daily basis, caught in a state of constant panic over what the future holds. It was becoming a mental block that was affecting my quality of life. So what was I to do? 

Just like Harris, each time I find myself worrying, I've started asking myself "Is this useful?" Unless I happen to be planning my spending for the next month or two, the answer tends to be no. Like everyone, I'm on a journey toward financial independence. But since I've chosen to fast-track to this destination, I've had to apply a long-term plan to make that happen. And that's fine! There is nothing wrong with having a plan, in fact it's very much a good thing! But once that plan is in place, once you are following it and making progress, you must allow yourself permission to go into auto-pilot. Don't constantly seek to revise that plan, give it time to work and see how it goes. Be patient! You should, of course, review your progress periodically just to make sure that it's still the right plan for you, but this shouldn't be a constant thought crossing your mind. Take it from me, you can't live like that! Check-in with yourself and your progress once per year at most. Review your outstanding mortgage debt, your pension pot and any other investments to make sure they are on track. Then review your goals and make sure that the plan you have satisfies those goals. If not, that's when you change the plan. I have a carefully constructed plan with milestones and a destination which is customised to suit me. I know where I'm headed and so I have no need for plans A through Z. If and when circumstances change, I'll adapt that plan accordingly.

So what happens to that plan that I've just written? Yet another page among a dozen other pages on the Notes app in my phone. Pages that I've spent hours glaring at. What to do with them? I swipe left on that useless rumination and I tap Delete. Then I'll go into my deleted notes section and I'll wipe it from there too. I decided that I cannot and should not allow forward planning to hurt my present contentment. It was occupying the forefront of my mind so often that I felt unable to be present, distant at (socially distant) gatherings, my mind elsewhere. That's no good to anyone. You could retire at 30 with millions in the bank and be set for the rest of your life, only to turn round and realise that you've lost everyone and everything that was important to you along the way. Your pursuit of the perfect early retirement has been the product of neglect for the people closest to you. And so the rest of your life you will be loaded, but very much alone.

That isn't me. That's not a life I envy. I'd rather be a social butterfly earning minimum wage than a lonely millionaire. 

~ Aedan.