Recently, I came across the expression in the title and I really like this way of putting it.

In “these trying economic times”, incidentally an expression which I hate, sacrifice has come to mean giving something up, rather than exchanging something to gain a better position, like in chess.

That said, I sympathize with the idea that being frugal beyond your means sucks. When I decided to become financially indendent, I did not know all the little money saving tricks to get full value for a quarter of the price and all I could do was to spend less and get less. Conversely, now when I read list of frugal “tips”, I find myself shaking my head and mumbling “Isn’t this stuff obvious!?!”. Once frugality becomes second nature, frugality no longer feels like deprivation. Conversely, not being frugal feels stupid or ignorant, which it kinda is.

However, having the “means of frugality” is worth a lot, as previously noted. Thus, frugality is key to early retirement, if you want some certitude in achieving it (you can probably forget about “making it” in leveraged real estate for next decade). After all, in the end, wealth is not about how much you have, but about what you can get.

Originally posted 2009-06-30 04:28:48.

… is hard to do.

Brauhster made a comment that retiring from one’s career is akin to divorce. I think that this is a good point. There are many parallels.

The mental change one undergoes or must undergo to leave one’s career is similar to breaking up a long-term relationship. This is significantly different from hopping from job to job which is more comparable to a series of flings, that is, high frequency serial monogamy.

I was “married” to my career for almost 17 years (counting my initial obsession, my masters and phd, and my two postdoc positions). This qualified as about half my lifetime at the time, which can be considered a long time no matter how old you are. It was in that sense not just been a job, but more like a partner; and in this case a partner, who has been with me far longer than any of my flesh and blood partners. It was what I thought about in the shower in the morning (get your mind out of the gutter 😛 ) and it was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. Sometimes I have gotten up after going to bed to write down a few notes.A career can also be thought of as a partner in terms of how you interact with it. Is it prestigious (hot?)? Does it require sacrifice e.g. you have to move to Podunk, Elbonia to stay with it? Does it take you to interesting places? Does it do performance reviews? Does your marriage have to be renewed every two years? Does it make you think? Do you have fun together? Does it provide well for you? Is your relationship meaningful? Does it love you back? Does it exploit you?

Ever thought of how your career is as a partner?

(Post your answer in the comments, creative types may draw and submit a picture 😎 )

Some break ups are easy to narrow down to a single cause (e.g. your partner one day without provocation decides to squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, WTH?! 😀 ), but many break-ups come about because of so-called “irreconcilable differences” which in euphemistic business parlance turns into “to pursue other interests”; so practically the same thing. In that case one spends, in my case, years trying to reconcile those differences, and if it works, great, and if it doesn’t, well, not so great.

The alternative is to live in “convenient/comfortable misery” — something I hear a lot e.g. “I don’t like my job/spouse/whatever, but I like the security and predictability and changing would be too risky/much work …”

With such an “irreconcilable differences”/”pursing other interests”-type break-up, both career and partner-wise, I think one generally remains on a friendly footing, after all, there are still things about the partner one likes that caused the attraction in the first place. However, the partner or career is just not going to be so much a part of one’s life as it once was. “I’ll call you, … eventually”.

I also think, but I may be biased by personal experience or personality, that effectively such break-ups are not as instant as the single event of the break-up suggests. For instance, I started considering other options 4 years before I finally quit (after the first “irreconcilable differences surfaced”), I put out material feelers a year before I quit, and I found a likely replacement 6 months later, all while continuing to give my present situation “yet another chance” up until the final point in time trying to make it work. After that it happened pretty fast. “Like telling your partner, you’re seeing someone else”-kind of fast 😀

The funny thing is that while things change externally at that point, very little really changes internally. Some have asked me how I’ve felt about it. Answer: “Nothing, really”. In that sense, “we” probably grew apart long ago.

I guess none of this really applies if you’re what is called “professional”. Now I expect some arguments because not everybody understand the word “professional” in the same way I do. For me to be a professional means turning your brain-skills into a machine component as much as “humanly” possible. I do not see any particular virtue in that (seems like a soul-less protestant work ethic inspired means of controlling the creative class) and in my opinion that is no way to live. Consider whether you would be willing to treat your relationship to your spouse on a “professional” basis or whether you’d marry someone who was a “professional” spouse? We call this prostitution. Why should your career, your life’s work, be like that?

Originally posted 2009-03-19 11:05:22.

Recently there was a feature on Oprah showing Denmark having the happiest people on Earth. I am a Dane, but in retrospect I was never too happy living there. I now live in the US. Obviously, there are some aspects I prefer about Denmark compared to the US such as its health care system. However, overall, Denmark is not the best place for ambitious individuals with a plan to pull off an early retirement or do what Americans call awesome(*) stuff. I consider the likelihood of me ever returning permanently to be small.

(*) Okay, Americans tend to call everything including their breakfast “awesome” 😉

First, the Oprah segment basically showed the upper middle class of Copenhagen. What you saw was not typical—the apartment shown is currently on sale for 1.25 million dollars, very few live like that(*), but the attitudes presented are typical of the “educated”-segment, that is, about 40% of the population —especially those with safe government positions, which is a lot.

(*) Your general suburban house outside the capital cost somewhere between $200k and $400k.

Comparably speaking, Danes spend a lot of their money on housing (the houses are really well built) and so less on stuff to fill the houses simply because they have less money left.

To say that everyone is lean from riding bicycles is an exaggeration to say the least. Still, the body shape that is considered average in the US is considered overweight in … well, pretty much the rest of the world. And so on. Danes would be considered slighlty chubby on average compared to Eastern Europeans who seem to eat better (less meat and less processed food).

There is universal health care, universal education, and universal unemployment “insurance”. It is true that there are very few homeless (all drug addicts). The streets are safe, but don’t leave an unlocked bicycle anywhere(!). The Danes are not violent but many are not exactly honest standup citizens either. The priority is on vacation and leisure time, not work time—this is because marginal tax rates are extreme, so why bother work, and because unions are strong, which means that those who do have a job get a lot of vacation time but conversely that unemployment is high. Is this a good thing? It is if you have a job.

Religion is very weak. This is due to socioeconomics (nobody needs to find meaning in religion) and due to historical reasons. The Danes always were a pagan bunch and expediently “believed” in whatever their king subscribed to. The institution of marriage has been resigned to tradition. People have children way before they get married, if they get married at all. Anyone who lives together for two years is pretty much considered effectively married, that is, they have the same rights as officially married people. Denmark was the one of the first if not the first country to legalize gay marriage. Frankly, nobody really cares. Humanism is fairly high; relative to GDP Denmark is one of the largest contributors of foreign aid.

What’s not to like? The downside is a resulting small-town mentality(*) with its low tolerance for individuality, being different or standing out, a low tolerance for ambition, very low levels of entrepreneurism, a smug belief that it is the best country in the world (well, you see that in the US as well, except in the US it’s not smug 😉 ), and few opportunities as it is a small country.

(*) This is readily apparent to me having been born there and lived outside the country for 10 years.

Everybody gets the same average (mediocre?) education regardless of whether they are talented or not. In other words, if “average” is goal, this is a great country as pretty much everything will steer you towards _average_. In that regard, for instance, the school system does not give out “awards” for anything which is in direct contrast to the US system.

However, it can be shown that happiness mainly stems from comparison to the neighbors and so if the neighbor is average and you are too, it makes you happy. This, I believe, is the main reason why the majority of Danes are happy. There are, however, a few extreme guys there and they have a hard time being happy in such an environment and so they emigrate.

How to become a Dane: You can become a citizen by living there for 7 years. You can do that with any EU passport (open borders). I know you can marry a EUropean, obviously. I do not know of other ways, but getting a job there can work; I suppose it is similar to the US. Check your nearest embassy/consulate. If you do want to immigrate I would recommend not bringing any or much of your own culture with you as this is frowned upon. Verily, the Danes are very tolerant but only if you’re exactly like them, yes?

Originally posted 2009-10-23 12:30:23.