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Can Money Set You Free?

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Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#31

Post by dunstad »

gaius wrote: post #23
rubidium wrote: post #9

I'm having trouble seeing what the author's definition of freedom is. Financial "security" is one definition I hear people use, and he brings up. But that can be gone in a moment or you can die and it doesn't matter, as his father did. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? I think that has to be defined first. The freest people I have met are those who don't worry about what they can't control, work hard at what the…

Money for me is physical freedom, the most literal kind. I work, work, work, but I can jump on a plane and fly anywhere on a whim, and I do. Averaging ~1 new foreign country/month so far this year :-)

Have you seen this guy? http://www.chrisguillebeau.com/ He shares your interest in travel; you might find it interesting.

Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#32

Post by chc »

brc wrote: post #24
chc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reads to me like an extremely long variant of "Let them eat cake." You really need to explain how working for a little while and then "cashing out" was a viable option for these men that they simply chose not to exercise.

No, it was not meant to be 'let them eat cake'. The point is : in free countries, we all get to choose our destiny, particularly so if born into middle class families. Any of us can choose to work hard for a while, find success and cash out. These men chose to take paid, salaried positions : they sacrificed their time for security of income stream. They (apparently, we have no evidence otherwise) never tried to quest…

I guess I just disagree with your premise. We can choose what we do, and we can influence our destiny, but we cannot choose our destiny. You can have a great business plan, eager customers and a wonderful revenue model and get hit by a drunk driver tomorrow. I wouldn't then say, "Well, that guy should have chosen a destiny where he didn't get run over."

We can't choose whether we get run over, and we can't choose whether we "find success" or have an opportunity to "cash out." We can try to influence things the way we want, but choosing our actions is not the same as choosing our results.

Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#33

Post by Supermighty »

alexro wrote: post #27
Supermighty wrote: post #3

>On the one hand, I have no boss, so I can’t be sacked – everything about every single aspect of my day and my work is entirely up to me. From that point of view, I’m about as free as it is possible for a person to be. On the other hand, I have no job security or protection of any kind. If people don’t want to read what I write, I have no income . We always have "boss". It doesn't matter if it's my manager at my day…

You can ignore a incompetent customer who doesn't know what he wants. Try this with a similar boss.

But you can't ignore customers as a whole. It similar to having a boss, but not exactly the same.

Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#34

Post by kragen »

Tichy wrote: post #20
kragen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you if you were talking about coal miners or supermarket checkers, but the one guy was a dentist and the other guy was a banker. Even 80 years ago, dentists and bankers made more than three times as much money per year as regular people. If they couldn't retire after one-third the normal career length, maybe the fault was not in their stars, but in themselves: perhaps a failure of frugality?

Or the people who make just one third are just even poorer. I have an income in the top 10% of my country, yet my feeling is it is only sufficient to scrape by in a moderately convenient way. Certainly not enough to retire early. Like to buy a house or apartment, I would probably still have to take a 30 year credit.

Pretty much everybody has the feeling that their income is "only sufficient to scrape by in a moderately convenient way". In the end, of course, they're all wrong: no income is enough to keep you alive. What good does homeownership do you once you're dead?

You're comment points out very effectively that this is an illusion. I'm sure you're aware that the other 90% of the people in your country are also at least scraping by, even though many of them have an income that is a fraction of yours. Do you suppose they spend all their time missing the conveniences you take for granted? Unless those conveniences are things like access to surgery and adequate food for their children (do you live in Zimbabwe?) probably not.

So consider whether the conveniences that account for the discrepancy between their scraping along and your scraping along are really worth the inconveniences required to buy them.

If you're like 90% of people, you never will consider this seriously — because if it wasn't crazy, everybody would be doing it, right? — until it's time for you to retire.

Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#35

Post by brc »

barrkel wrote: post #29
brc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so choose one where you can. That's my point. Don't bash your head against a bank wall for 40 years and then think you've wasted your life. In other words : you can't sell a job, so why spend 40 years working at one?

What are you going to do after you "cash out"? Work can be a source of purpose in one's life. I don't believe in this idea, that seems implied in your post, that bliss lies in comfortable unemployment.

>What are you going to do after you "cash out"?

Whatever you want! Start another job, go trekking, work for a charity, write poetry.

The original article questions whether money can get you freedom, the answer is : yes it can! The ultimate freedom is choosing to do things each day because you want to, not because you have to.

Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#36

Post by dwwoelfel »

cperciva wrote: post #10
thefool wrote: post #6

This quote was interesting to me, "That would be the end of the world for serious writers, who are not performers and who can’t earn a living giving concerts and selling T-shirts. Nobody knows how this is going to play out." There isn't an audience for successful writers to be speakers?

I know plenty of academics who are highly engaging in writing but utterly useless at speaking -- even in private conversations, never mind public speaking. I feel sorry for their students, but I'm glad for the books and research they produce.

Do you know of any who were able to improve their speaking? If so, do you know how?

Re: Can Money Set You Free?

#37

Post by barrkel »

brc wrote: post #35
barrkel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you going to do after you "cash out"? Work can be a source of purpose in one's life. I don't believe in this idea, that seems implied in your post, that bliss lies in comfortable unemployment.

>What are you going to do after you "cash out"? Whatever you want! Start another job, go trekking, work for a charity, write poetry. The original article questions whether money can get you freedom, the answer is : yes it can! The ultimate freedom is choosing to do things each day because you want to, not because you have to.

You can start another job, go trekking, work for a charity, write poetry, etc. without needing to cash out. Just do it now. No need for money, if that's what you really want.

Your life is made up of what you are doing right now, not what you think you're going to do sometime in the future.

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