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Investment / Job Tip 1: Emotional Detachment

One of my favorite FIRE bloggers (Brian Halim of Foreverfinancialfreedom) recently posted this.

I found it relatable. How many pursuers of FIRE are stuck in unhappy jobs, but stick it through because it pays relatively well.  Brian calls it the golden handcuffs. The imagery this expression invokes is rather apt.  After all, a job, even a well-paying one, is nothing but a pretty set of chains.

Many things may irk us at work.

A troublesome client who gives instructions just before the deadline expires, but the instructions entail sufficient complexity to orchestrate another moon landing. 

A colleague who chain emails the entire office, plus their pets, to tout a small win, just to inch closer towards a promotion that no one cares about.

The "this is not my pay grade" colleague who would rather stare into the abyss of his/her mobile screen, then to lift a finger to perform a task they are being paid to do.

Stay in a toxic environment long enough and you get sucked into the negativity. It is almost unavoidable. You start to feel depressed and irritable.  You dread the morning alarm. The morning shower feels like the cold rain drenching the protagonist in an Korean drama after getting dumped by the gold-digger leaving for the chaebol scion. You get the idea.

Everyday feels like an eternity.

You look at your FIRE plan and it says: 10 more years before FI. Your morale goes down faster than Tenshin Nasukawa in the Mayweather bout.

There are not alot of solutions to situations like this. Either quit the job and hope for the best. Or, like me, choose emotional detachment.

#JustaJob.

If an event is not serious enough to end your career, don't sweat it. Don't give a fuck. We only have some many fucks to give a day, ration it out. Only give a fuck for the critical things in life. Like whether to go with 10 luck or 10 agility in Fall Out character making.

Investing in the market is pretty much the same thing. Did you pick a shitty stock? If so, sell it.  Stop worrying about it.  Is the company sound but the market is throwing a bitch fit (Singtel i am looking at you), keep it. Earn the dividends. Stop worrying about it. Don't give a fuck.

Sure it takes a bit of mental fortitude to stare down a 5 or even 6 digit loss on your portfolio and go, nah, fuck it.  But what else can you do.  Take the loss or take it on the chin. No two ways about it.












Comments

  1. Thank you for the mention.

    I like how you think from this aspect that work can at times even unscrupel into something that is nasty last minute and disrupt our schedule.

    Thanks for your post too, it was great to read

    ReplyDelete

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