Overcoming the "me" goals

I am happy to report that this past week I was off duties and able to recover from the frantic and meaningless activities at work. At least four hours a day I did work on a job assignment; however, "working-while-on vacation" is a routine for me.

The time away from the job has given me the chance to redefine (again) my smaller- and bigger-scale goals, learn more about some financial tools, and ruminate on how to align the spiritual with the material.

I hope that you also have had some time around the holidays to ponder about what comes next in your life.

I have also been listening to the podcasts of ChooseFI. I have been reading some of the latest posts of JL Collins and the other FI (financial independence) people (look here).

It is refreshing to learn from a bunch of highly organized, intentional and reflective people how they perceive life and how they prepare for intentional existence. The FI folks truly create the impression of being masters of their lives. They know what their goals are, they know how to get there, they track each step in the journey. 

I have only admiration (and a bit of envy) for these guys. In contrast, the only thing I currently know is that I would love to get out of the current job in four years. However, I have no clear idea on what I will do after these four years. And this means that my journey is not inspired. The goals and my next life destination should be the driving force that fuels me through the years. As of now, I am unsure that I can make it through almost 1500 workdays (that's right, I count weekends too, and with a good reason)!  

My next assignment is to think what comes after the 1500 days, so that I could align the material needs with my spiritual aspirations. The default would be to bum around for some time after I have secured the minimum "survival" income, and then my inspiration might come ... All I know is that my dream is not what is described at the beginning of this podcast:

I would rather visit the local library every week, have a modest and cozy home, and maybe have a garden. And maybe if I am not working even during my "vacation time", I would be able to find myself again and rediscover what truly motivates me? 

I just found the blog of the Wealthy Accountant, and interestingly, this post by him discusses the need for a simple goal when one strives for early retirement.  I still have to work on my own goal by externalizing it, i.e., by making it more about others than myself.  Being cozy and having enough time for books and gardening is great, but it is awfully egotistical.What is your goal?

New Year’s wishes or wishing for nothing

It is the end of the year, a time for questions and reflection. 

Did my past year have any meaning? 

Will I be able to find more meaning in the coming years? 

And how many years are ahead of me?  

When I was little, I trusted all adults "since they knew it all". Every time I reached a question without a solution, I had no doubt that the adults would find the answer. Now, that I am in the adult category, I realize how preposterous my views were. Adulthood does not equal knowledge, and certainly, the number of answer-less questions multiplies with age.

In my quest for answers, I found the BBC - documented extreme pilgrimage of Peter Owen Jones, a British parish priest. If you have not seen the three episodes, you can find them on YouTube. 

The journey leads to China, where Peter learns to cultivate the sense of non-attachment and realizes that he needs to attain “stillness of the mind”. Towards the end of the first journey, Peter says “…I stopped thinking and immersed myself in the daily life.” I am not sure that this behavior differs from our daily rat race, except for the fact that we try to accumulate lots of useless stuff during the race; whereas, the Zen - blessed monks do not hoard anything material. 

In India, Peter’s quest for spirituality becomes more bizarre. The journey starts with the Hindu gathering for the festival of Kumbha Mela on the river Ganges. Peter explains that Hindus believe that they are trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth, and salvation releases them from this cycle. The first part of this episode is dedicated to hashish, festival camps and semi-naked gurus. It is later, when the spiritual exploration is initiated through the road of austerity, yoga, and a quick tutorial on Hindu gods. The culmination of the episode is the cave experience in the Himalayas, where Peter again realizes that detachment from everything might be the path to spirituality.  

The third journey is in Egypt, where Peter subjects himself to the life of a Christian hermit. On his way to the hermit caves in the desert, Peter visits the oldest Christian monastery in the world - this of Saint Anthony. Residing alone seems to require more tenacity than ever envisioned. Thus, the theme of deprivation is further developed, and there is also the realization that “perhaps we have too many opportunities in our lives …to make the wrong choices”.
 
Did I learn anything? Peter’s pilgrimage confirmed that to our spirituality, the material world functions the same way as clothes to our bodies: the material world entraps our spirituality. 

The unifying theme of the three journeys is this of being able to detach yourself from the material world and be in touch with nature. In my case, age has brought a degree of detachment from the material world. I have this gnawing feeling that the THINGS in my house are the distractions on my way to the answers I seek, and that the time invested in taking care of the THINGS is a diversion. I find myself yearning to live only with the most essential.  

(How about a pair of shorts and a few T-shirts with flip-flops?)

I also have this inkling that only when we let go of every thought and anxiety, we can discern the meaning of life. It is only the contrast between the emotions/states that helps us perceive anything. There will be no day without the night, no poor without the rich, no beautiful without the ugly, no happiness without the misery, and certainly, no meaning without the lack of meaning. Therefore, the deprivation of our senses from human contacts, emotions, and sounds may allow us to grasp the meaning and richness of human life. 

Probably our pilgrimage through life should follow nature’s cycle: the same way winter’s austerity and deprivation of our senses is followed by spring's generosity of colors, shapes, and warmth, we need to spend time alone in order to appreciate everyone and everything around us. And then the newly-acquired appreciation will bring the meaning.