Bad Days at Work that Remind Me Why I Must Retire Early

Work was terrible today. Over the weekend I was meant to work on a report because I had been putting it off for so long. However, I didn't manage to do any work on the weekend, so I dedicated today to finishing this report, and I found myself working on it the whole day. Even at the end of today, I still haven't finished this report. I will have to continue it tomorrow.

During the day, I had to juggle other work as well. I also had angry or passive aggressive people calling me to chase for things that I needed to get from others, so juggling all these things just made me feel weary and tired. Because it was Monday, I was feeling tired from recovering from sleeping in during the weekend, and to top it off, today was an extremely hot and humid day, even at night time. I had two fans on at the same time on my desk. There is an air conditioner outside my room,  but if I open the door then there is too much noise from outside.

It's days like these when I seriously think about early retirement. Every now and then a day like this pops around. Days like these have been popping up ever since the beginning of my career, and it's one of the reasons why I am so obsessed about early retirement. I need to give myself the option to retire early because I don't want to be a wage slave for life. That is not an option.

I also hate my job. I know some people love their job, and it is great for them if they do. However, I hate my job. My job is tolerable, but it's not something I enjoy. 

Anyway, today I realised that perhaps I will need to pare down my ambitions. Perhaps I need to accept retiring with less so that I can retire sooner. Alternatively, I can work for longer and retire more comfortably later. But perhaps I don't have it in me to work too long. I feel drained now. I feel stressed. Work is just too much for me. I hate it, and I am not going to pretend I love my job.

Some people say that I should move to a different job and do something else, such as something more related to my university degree, or doing more quantitative or technical work, or perhaps work in a non-profit. But the problem with these ideas is that I will need to somehow get into these jobs. I don't have any experience in these areas and I would need to go to interview after interview, and even if I am successful and get the new job, who is to say I won't hate it there because I am overwhelmed by work, or perhaps the manager turns out to be a bully? The more I look at it, the more I realise that the solution is not to find good work but to have a plan to end up not working at all. There is something about having money dangled in front of you that destroys your soul. 

Five Rules to Live By

1. Work as if it were just something you do. You don't need to work hard. Try to enjoy whatever work you do.

2. Live a minimalist lifestyle. Have your own room. Do your own thing: Netflix, YouTube, writing, etc. Subscribe to Soylent (or Huel, Joylent, or Aussielent) so you don't need to be dependent on a someone else cooking or cleaning for you. Share accommodation with others to save money, but try to minimize socializing with those you live with.

3. Invest in a diverse range of high dividend paying ETFs. As fast as possible, live 100% off dividends from these ETFs so that 100% of your salary goes towards investing rather than living expenses. You live off other people's labor, not your own. When you get used to living off dividends, you are no longer dependent on your job. The true measure of a man's wealth is how many years he can survive if he did nothing. If a man can survive forever without work, he is a free man. Anything else is partial or full slavery.

4. Don't connect. Try to shield yourself from the world. Isolate yourself more. Use your dividend income to achieve this. Have your own room, don't connect with others. Live off dividends. Do your own thing. Be an urban hermit. Once you are achieved total independence, you can venture out in search of what makes you happy (dating, hobbies, etc) but you are safe in the knowledge that you can always retreat back into your fortress should you need to.

5. Never marry and never cohabitate. Marriage is slavery. Never have children either.

Young Men Turning to Online Role Models

Yesterday was an interesting day because it was fairly boring and I didn’t do much. I remember reading an article by Victor Pride about how to deal with perfectionism to create success. When I read Victor’s article and thought about my performance at work, I started to realize that I am a perfectionist, but this is not a good thing. It actually makes me very slow and unproductive. Victor cites a Business Insider article that has the following to say about perfectionism:

Burns defines perfectionists as “people who strain compulsively and unremittingly toward impossible goals and who measure their own worth entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment”. 

In the workplace, perfectionism is often marked by low productivity as individuals lose time and energy on attention to detail and small irrelevant details of larger projects or mundane daily activities. 

Adderholt-Elliot describes five characteristics of perfectionist students and teachers which contribute to underachievement: procrastination, fear of failure, the all-or-nothing mindset, paralyzed perfectionism, and workaholism.

I think I will digress for a moment now and say that I owe Victor Pride a lot. I think this happens considerably nowadays but young men (although I am in my early thirties now, so am I really young?) are faced with a crisis in that they tend to grow up in broken homes, and this shatters the respect that they had for their father as authority figures. I am projecting now because this is what happened to me! I should talk for myself. Basically I respected my parents, but when the marriage broke down, I pretty much became lost, and this was especially the case throughout university when I was struggling to figure out what I should do for the rest of my life. Couple with this the fact that gender roles are being questioned and attacked (for good or for bad) and young men are really lost about how to behave. Thankfully, there is the internet, and Victor Pride really helped me in the early days, although there are many other internet role models. Basically the internet has opened my eyes up to many different ways of thinking, and YouTube in particular allows you to receive wisdom and motivation from others. The bottom line is to receive your wisdom from many corners of the internet because there are so many viewpoints on the internet, and there may be no correct viewpoint. Just be exposed to many viewpoints and make a decision for yourself.

Back to the topic of productivity at work. On Friday morning, it took me about two hours to send out two emails because I was checking everything. I had to make sure it read well, I had to make sure it was sent to the right person, I had to make sure I didn’t say anything that was wrong, etc. I suppose there is nothing wrong with this. I cannot make mistakes. That would be horrible, so I guess I don’t really have a choice, but I am a slow worker. This may also explain why I work so much. I come in early sometimes and stay in late, and I take work home over the weekend.

Only Passive Income Can Break the Shackles of the 9-to-5

I am trying not to feel any emotion at work. I just need to remember that I am there only to make money. All I need to do is survive. I just need to do what they say. It will only be about five more years and then I think I will retire. My manager doesn’t seem to speak to me much, but this is nothing unusual. He is that sort of person. It doesn’t really bother me that much. If I get no work, I can always find things to do.

I don't want a promotion. It's more effort than it's worth. For the same reason, I won't try to change jobs. Going to interviews and writing up a resume is just too much for me. I will just go to work and avoid trouble. I will move where they move me. I will dedicate the rest of my years in this job trying to risk manage everything. That is, I will imagine every possible way things can go wrong and I will take action to make sure it doesn't happen. That's what everyone else seems to do anyway. There is definitely a risk-averse culture in my workplace.

For about a year now, I’ve been saving up cash because I figure I’d want to buy a house or maybe I’d want to run an online business. However, I’ve found recently that an online business is just hard. I think it’s because I work all full-time and when I’m not working I’m just tired, so it’s difficult. I will keep trying to find a way to make money online, but so far the only thing that has proven itself is investments in ETFs, so this week plowed about $35,000 into ETFs. In particular, I am investing in ETFs that pay very high income. I am going all in on passive income. I see passive income as the only reliable route to freedom, and there is nothing I want more than freedom right now. I have even borrowed money from my margin loan account into order to invest into these ETFs. I am not concerned about borrowing money to invest in ETFs. I figure that I have so much money in my superannuation fund (retirement fund) now that I can afford to carry around debt until I am sixty or whenever I get access to my superannuation. When I do get this superannuation money, it should be over $1 million, which will easily pay the $50k or so worth of margin loan debt I will have.

The bottom line is to keep doing what I’ve always been doing, which is to go to work, to work hard and avoid trouble. I will be thrifty. I have allowed myself to spend my passive income and a little bit of my salary (about 15%), but that is it. It will not be too hard now because I am producing quite a bit of passive income. Over time, as my passive income increases, it will get easier. I really have little to be concerned about. Everything will take care of itself if I follow the system.

If there is anything wrong with me it is that I am too polite, and I will need to be careful I don’t give away my money to others. I must not allow myself to be manipulated. I will need to be strong. I love to talk about investing. It really is my only passion. Of course, talking about money is dangerous.

Anyway, I have a purpose and a system now. I go all in passive income. As time goes by, my passive income rises and my life gets more comfortable. Once it starts getting really comfortable, then after about 2020 I will start to semi-retire, which I suppose will mean I will take longer holidays off from work. I will not be afraid of taking leave with half pay. Maybe by then I will hate my job so much I will just quit. I don’t know. We will see.

Escaping Full-Time Work

Sick and tired of watching advertisements on TV, I now resort to making good use of the broadband plan that I have with my ISP and watching mainly YouTube videos on my television. There are ads on YouTube, but they don't seem to be as offensive as the ads on mainstream Australian TV (e.g. those annoying X-Factor ads where someone sings wells, there is a standing ovation, people start crying, etc).

One of the people on YouTube I watch is George Hemminger. Here is a video of him talking about how he doesn't work full-time because he is unable to.

 

I have a full time job now but always wonder whether I can do it for the rest of my life. I am almost 30 now, and most people retire at about 60, so it's another 30 years of full-time work. I've been reflecting on this topic for a while now and I don't think I have the energy to do it. Luckily for me, I don't have wife, children, mortgage, or even a girlfriend. I barely even have any friends. It's not something I deliberately set out to achieve, but just a by-product of being introverted or shy.

I have no plans to get a big mortgage or a wife or children, and I still work full-time, even though I question whether I want to do it. I suppose it's the fear of no longer earning an income that keeps me working.

My hatred of being a full-time employee relates to lack of freedom. When you are an employee, you have to go to work and do what the boss tells you to do, and it's that constant subordination that wears me out. I think one of these days I should start my own business, but I'll need to save up some money first.

Many people think that in order to start your own business you must have a really good idea. Even though I have no experience in running my own business, I doubt this is true. What is wrong with taking an existing tried-and-tested business model, e.g. starting a milk bar, and doing that? Some people will say that if you don't invent anything, you will compete with many others. For example, if you invent a cure of AIDS, you will have exclusive monopoly rights granted by patent law and you can make huge profits, but if you start a milk bar, you will compete with all the other milk bars out there and make almost nothing. While I agree that monopolization can be highly profitable, I don't agree that just because you start a mainstream business (e.g. a cafe or a milk bar) that you cannot make any money. You will just not make as much money. If there is no money to be made from e.g. opening a cafe or a milk bar, why do cafes and milk bars exist? There must be some profit. Furthermore, even if you are an employee, you are not inventing anything. You go to university just like millions of other people out there and when you leave and apply for jobs or apply for promotions within an organisation, you are competing. You are competing on basic things like communication skills, writing skills, stakeholder management skills, and so forth.