I think my entire philosophy on the interplay between money and happiness within the construct of financial independence can be boiled down into oatmeal and brown sugar.
Allow me to explain.
Your life, work, passion, and purpose is a big bowl of oatmeal.
Focusing on that bowl of oatmeal is significantly beneficial to one’s psyche in numerous ways, providing the catalyst toward greater happiness.
Oatmeal will fulfill you. It will provide longlasting energy. It will improve your health and wellness. It will provide clarity. It will motivate and inspire you. It will give you the tools to succeed.
Oatmeal is whatever it is that drives you. It’s what gets you excited to jump out of bed and begin your day. If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, oatmeal is the most important meal of one’s life – because it’s life itself.
For me, oatmeal is a big bowl of writing, coaching, living in and exploring Thailand, relationships, exercise, etc.
My work drives me, but not because I need to work. My work drives me because I enjoy it. I love helping people achieve their dreams. Making others happy makes me happy. I want to positively change the world in my own little way.
And since adding value to the world naturally tends to result in value being added back into your life, much of the math behind early retirement is moot.
But it is a sense of purpose (not money) that is my focus. I focus on the oatmeal because it tastes good and makes me a better, fitter, more fulfilled member of my species. It fills me up.
Money is the brown sugar.
The brown sugar should be in the peripheral of one’s life. It should be off to the side, where condiments would be placed.
It adds some sweetness to the oatmeal, but one can’t sustain themselves off of brown sugar alone. If they try to do so, they’ll end up with a mouthful of rotten teeth. And the energy they’ll receive will only be short term in nature, sending them crashing back down to earth when they realize that there’s a lack of substance behind the high. Plus, they’ll never be full.
You cannot be fulfilled off of money alone. If it’s money that drives you, you’ll end up empty inside.
Of course, the foundation upon which one can almost solely focus on oatmeal alone is financial independence. And that’s why it’s so important to build the holistic lifestyle and life philosophy necessary to efficiently and quickly achieve financial independence, which I’ve laid out in my best-selling book.
Whereas most people are too busy focusing on brown sugar because they’re constantly in search for the next temporary high (after coming back down from the last one), financial independence allows one to circumvent the hedonic treadmill altogether by finding a lasting solution to personal fulfillment.
Once you eliminate money as a concern in your life (because your bills are paid indefinitely), you can instead just eat bowl after bowl of oatmeal. You’ll feel alive, healthy, alert, inspired, and fulfilled. And you’ll wonder how you ever got by with brown sugar alone.
That isn’t to say that one will never have brown sugar again. Quite the contrary, as financial independence allows for a stable full of more brown sugar than most people could ever dream of.
However, once you have so much of it, you’ll realize that consuming too much of it yourself will only corrode your insides, which is why many people with a lot of brown sugar decide to give much of their supply away.
A little brown sugar here and there certainly makes the oatmeal taste a bit better, but it should only be thought of as something that accentuates the primary focus of one’s life. It should only be used to sweeten the main course.
Writing this very article was an example of me consuming a little bit of oatmeal. And I must say, I really enjoyed it.
I hope you did, too.
What do you think? Do you try to eat oatmeal instead of brown sugar? What is your oatmeal?
Thanks for reading.
Image courtesy of: phasinphoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Followed you since your DM days.You’ve finally written a post that doesn’t do it for me. I’ll read it again when I’m better rested. I don’t like oatmeal, maybe you could revamp this post with pizza and wings. 🙂
I still really, really like 99.9% of your posts
Fred,
This article is probably above most people’s heads. I mean no offense by that. But I think most people read something like this and then ask, “But how can I make more money?” Totally misses the point. I’ve just kind of… evolved. 🙂
Cheers!
There is slot of good content in this article that may require more reflection.
I like brown sugar and oatmeal too. Sometimes I’ll snack on one or the other. But there is a yin and a yang quality here, one cannot exist alone without the other.
-Mike
Mike,
I wrote this article after reflecting upon something I read myself. Tony Hawk did an interview not too long ago, discussing how the money he earns off of his various businesses is just an “incidental”. The money was never his focus. It’s a complete side effect of doing what he loves. I couldn’t have agreed more with what he was saying. This is analogous to that larger message. It’s also along the same lines of what Buffett talks about all the time. He clearly doesn’t work for money.
However, most people don’t think this way. Of course, many (supposedly “successful”) people in America also aren’t very happy. Tony Hawk is obviously thrilled to wake up every day. And so am I. 🙂
On a related note, I’ve noticed a visceral and positive difference in terms of widespread happiness since coming to Thailand. People are smiling everywhere in Chiang Mai. The LOS nickname seems to hold up. Yet there’s far less wealth here.
Best regards.
I didn’t know much about Tony Hawk but just saw a video on his life philosophies. Very cool. I may be there too but I still need my intake of brown sugar with family commitments and all- I suspect the enough point will come soon enough.
I know I like to keep learning and go through phases of what captivates me for a few years before moving on.
I am so happy that you are enjoying living in Thailand thus far. But also remain watchful that the first year of living here is a honeymoon phase that many grow tired with for their own reasons. Many things that make living here charming and fun can also be infuriating if your state of mind changes.
There are something like twelve different types of Thai smiles and not all of them are happy. There is sad smile, crying smile, “I’m going to kill you” smile, jealous smile, etc.
In a real sense Thailand is kind of like a giant mirror, at least more than I’ve experienced when living or visiting other countries. What you project is what you receive. Sometimes controlling your state of mind is the hardest part.
I suspect you will do really well. Things tend to go pear shaped when one expects to accomplish too much or rely on the workings of the system, especially when taking positions of leadership or responsibility here. So your lifestyle design will take a lot of the stressful factors way down. I wish you nothing but the best.
Mike
Mike,
Indeed. There’s a honeymoon phase that’s occurring. But I’m a pretty rational person who relies heavily on pragmatic logic. There are benefits and drawbacks to living here. There are also benefits and drawbacks to living elsewhere. I just happen to feel like the spread between benefits and drawbacks is more advantageous here than anywhere else I’m aware of.
I thought the move would turn out well – or else I wouldn’t have come. But it’s been going way better than I had anticipated. I honestly couldn’t be happier. 🙂
Thanks for the well wishes. Wish you the same!
Best regards.
Love it Jason! Just the other day I was reflecting on how I need to spend less time checking on the value of my stock portfolio and more time playing with my children. The feeling of relaxation that comes from a tea party or a bike ride around the neighborhood is substantially more filling than a dividend increase.
I work 2 side jobs and as soon as I knock out my mortgage (next year or so if things go well), I’ll be dropping them like a bad habit and focus on filling my soul with family, friends, and all those things I truly love doing!
Paul,
That’s what I’m talking about, man! 🙂
I love investing. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s just one (rather small) facet of my life. It’s just part of my oatmeal. Like the complex carbs that are found in oatmeal, my life and interests are complex. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sounds like you’ve got a fulfilling and multidimensional life going on over there. Really glad to hear it.
Thanks for sharing!
Best wishes.
I agree with the dialogue that money as an end goal is not the purpose of a fulfilling life. My money needs to have a purpose, and right now it is for an end goal of FIRE. I was apprehensive about reading an article about oatmeal and brown sugar, but I read it, and it made complete sense to me. I even had my husband read it because he eats oatmeal every day, and he really liked your analogy.
HP,
Right. The money is just a means to an end. The end is freedom (which also happens to be its own beginning). From there, however, you need to have plenty of oatmeal in your life. Otherwise, you’ll end up rotting from the inside out and never really filled up.
Best regards!
I get it.
I love oatmeal and eat it everyday for a breakfast. My oatmeal is made of steel cut oats, chopped apple, a tbsp of raisins, tbsp of crushed flax seeds, 10 almonds crushed, a handful of walnuts, 1/4 tsp of turmeric, and a bit of black pepper, and half a cup of unsweetened soy milk.
This is my breakfast every single day and I never get tired of it. The turmeric and black pepper add spice to my oatmeal while apple and raisin provide sweetness. Oats give it a chewy texture and fullness while flax seeds provide the glue to keep it all together.
It’s an amazingly tasty and fulfilling meal similar to the life I live.
Thanks for a wonderful article.
Mr. ATM
Mr. ATM,
That’s a pretty interesting (an precise) recipe there! 🙂
What’s funny is that I pretty much never eat oatmeal. Especially here in Thailand. I mostly eat Thai food here. But I just used “oatmeal and brown sugar” for my analogy because it’s quite simple. You can use whatever food you want, if it helps. The important thing is that you understand the underlying point: that which you spend most of your time on should totally fill and fulfill you, as otherwise doing it completely (or even mostly) for the money will rot you from the inside out. The money should only sweeten your pursuits. But the money should also be off in the peripheral in your life (rather than the focus), used like a condiment would be.
If I did all that I do – the writing, coaching, investment videos, etc. – only (or even mostly) for the money, I would have found misery in it a long time ago.
Thanks for dropping by!
Best regards.
You used oatmeal for your analogy, but you pretty much never eat it?
So why not use something that you eat or like as an analogy, especially since you are talking about the goodness and the wholeness of it. Wouldn’t that be more original?
I’m a bit disappointed that I got suckered into reading your article because you had a picture of a big bowl of my favorite oatmeal.
Mr. ATM,
This isn’t a nutrition blog. I don’t write about food. I used oatmeal and brown sugar because it’s a simple analogy to make. The food doesn’t matter, though. The fact that some people are so focused on homing in on oatmeal as a dietary choice (or non-choice) shows that maybe some are missing the point. These same people would make this same mistake, regardless of the food analogy I were to use. Using Pad See Ew and a side of spice would spark a conversation on Thai food. So on and so forth. But I would expect someone with your alias (all things money?) to miss the point here (which is that one shouldn’t concentrate constantly on money).
Cheers!
Hi Jason, I pretty much agree. I think that one aspect of the “oatmeal” that’s especially tricky is that it can be very hard to find your passion, with lots of false starts. For example, I know of doctors who go into medicine thinking it’s their life’s purpose, only to get disillusioned a few years in because of things like medical billing, prescription drug advertising, and other “commercialization” of medicine. The same might go for professional athletes that play for the love of the game, only to face pressure to dope in order to not stay behind.
Like you say, though, early financial independence could be a great antidote and allow one the means to find one’s passion!
Miguel,
Thanks for adding that. I definitely agree with you.
I think financial independence is the “antidote” because it really allows you to stay fluid and flexible. For instance, even finding your passion (or group of passions, as it probably should be) might seem wonderful… until things change. As a personal example, will I always love writing like I do now? Maybe. Maybe not. But financial independence allows one to constantly reinvent themselves without worrying about the financial implications. There’s so much value in that. 🙂
Best regards!