Introduction

I am going to make an audacious claim today, both to myself, and to you: You are in Control of Your Future. Did it sound ridiculous and pretentious when you said it aloud? It did to me at first, and then I said it to myself a few times, and over and over again, it didn’t sound as ludicrous as it did before. In fact, making that statement over and over only lead to more questions. Am I not in control of my future? Who is responsible of my future then?

I proceeded to pacify my mind: hey, I hold a masters degree, I earn a very good salary and I am in a very respectable position in my company. Even if I lose my job, I can find another position with almost the same pay and I can continue being awesome. But it wasn’t a satisfying answer to the question, “am I in control of  my future?” The answer was a resounding NO. To be honest, the reason I wanted to fool my mind is that “ME” controlling “MY” future sounds such a tedious and a scary task. I mean, who want’s to take responsibility for their own well being! If I accept that I CAN control my future, it would mean that I cannot shift blame on to my parents, spouse, kids, friends, relatives, government or the almighty for my failure to be independent.

However, once I accepted that, currently, I am not in control of my future, and more importantly, I would like to be in control of it, I felt that it would be nice to have one tool, one cure, a panacea of sorts, that will help me to control my future. And then I realized that such a tool indeed exist, and it’s called MONEY. It sure takes different forms such as dollars, euros, gold, land, home and vintage wines, but the underlying theme was same. You can spend some of this “money” fellow and can get whatever you want, well almost. And apparently, this almost seemed to cover 99% of my daily regular needs, a situation many in this world would love to be in. Now imagine my surprise when I realized that I indeed get this wonderful tool on a regular basis for an amount of time that I spend working for someone else. If only I can retain some of this money so that I can buy the things I would need in the future! But I was only wasting most of it on frivolous spending.

Such a simple concept, but it evaded me for a good 31 years of my existence. I have never been a saver; I spent almost all of my money, and sometimes the money I didn’t have on instant gratification. However, a particular bad day at office started the above discussed train of thought: I am not in control of my future. I want to be in control of my future. I want to be able to spend my time on earth the way I deem it to be fit. I don’t want to spend almost 9 hours of my every day existence working for someone else. After I estimated my current situation, I was in a precarious position, unsurprisingly.

I have now decided that I would now strive to be “Financially Independent” or FI, a concept that seems to elude almost all of current working class generation. I wish to be financially independent of any entity, so that no one can make a claim on my future time. Now initially I fantasized about winning  a lottery or selling my imaginary company for multimillion buttload of money so that I can continue to, in fact spend on more frivolous things in my future. In fact, for an average joe like myself, lottery or a windfall seemed to the only ways in which I could aspire to be financially independent. That surely can’t be right; is the current system loaded so much against an average person?

In fact, it is not. I realized it when I found that I have spent 60% of my past 2 year expenses on the things I absolutely wouldn’t have needed. 60%! It varied from many unnecessary restaurant and pizza orders, useless subscriptions/fees, credit card interest, home furnishings, and countless other things I am too ashamed to put here. What a waste! And then there was this “click”: I was wasting my opportunity to secure my future by spending on stupid things.

Trust me, once you realize it, there is no going back. It’s like you have awaken from the Matrix, like Neo, and you see yourself and the world for exactly who you are. That you are running on a consumer treadmill, sadly, for no reason except that your neighbors, friends and relatives are also doing the same. That you have given up the thought of getting out of it, and taking a stroll on your own space while enjoying the beauty and the riches of this world. That you are grooming your progeny to take over your treadmill once you are too tired, or dead, to continue.

This is my journey towards that not so elusive target of being “financially independent” or FI. There are many definitions of being financially independent, but in my opinion, it means that I don’t have to do anything for the sake of money. That I I’ll have sufficient income to cover my needs throughout the rest of my life that I don’t have to do anything I want to. That is true freedom.