There is this famous line from the Forrest Gump movie: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.”
Is that so?
To ponder over this question was somehow how our journey towards Financial Independence began almost one year ago. To be frank in the beginning the “we” was only Ms. Becoming FI. Like so many times before something from the outside needed to happen to pause the ever-ongoing rat race: She lost her job.
This was a good thing. No really, we mean it!
Sure, in that moment it was awful but in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened.
Ms. Becoming FI always had the feeling that she didn’t belong to the 9-5 workforce and that there has to be more to life than this. Now having the time to look around for other ideas how to live life she found the FI community. Actually, this was the best thing that could have happened!
The biggest epiphany and a great relief was the discovery that there are millions of people out there who don’t want to live the “normal life” that one "should" live: Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat. And she thought she was the only one!
This was a great comfort especially since everybody around us was repeating the same old lines “You need to start looking for a new job immediately, a resume gap doesn´t look good" and so on.
Hold on, you said in the beginning “we” was only Ms. becoming.fi. So true!
When Ms. becoming.fi introduced the idea about Financial Independence, Mr. Becoming FI was sceptical. His reaction was typical for many people hearing about the idea for the first time:
This is only possible for a few privileged people earning a lot of money.
This is not possible for us.
This is only a dream.
Well, two months later Mr. Becoming FI calls himself privileged, and if you will - a dreamer -together with Ms. Becoming FI on their shared journey towards Financial Independence.
Wait, how did this happen so fast? Fair enough, let’s go there for a minute.
Ms. Becoming FI in her great wisdom pursued the convincing and provided the soon-to-be-Mr. Becoming FI with a couple of podcast episodes by the Mad Fientist. After having listened to the first two episodes, in which the Mad Fientist interwievs Mr. Money Mustache and JL Collins, Mr. becoming.fi was hooked and began his research. The rest is history as they say.
Hey, this was less than a minute you think. Okay, there will be more details in future blogs posts, promise!
Do you like chocolate?
Um, what’s the question?
Remember the “Life is like a box of chocolates” quote in the beginning of this post and the following question "Is that so?"
Especially the “you never know what you’re gonna get” part?
Everybody has a couple of favourite chocolates but which ones were our favourites and how could we make sure to get them?
Those were the questions that started to spin in our minds having read more and more on the FI topic - What were our favourite chocolates in the box of life and how to get them? And equally important, how not to choke on the rest?
The answer? To become financially independent and focus on the things that are most important to us – our favourite chocolates!