Jacob,
Have you read Henry Ford’s autobiography, “My Life and Work”?

Here’s what he said back, waaaaay back in 1920 or so (emphasis mine)

There is no difficulty in picking out men. They pick themselves out because—although one hears a great deal about the lack of opportunity for advancement—the average workman is more interested in a steady job than he is in advancement. Scarcely more than five per cent, of those who work for wages, while they have the desire to receive more money, have also the willingness to accept the additional responsibility and the additional work which goes with the higher places. Only about twenty-five per cent. are even willing to be straw bosses, and most of them take that position because it carries with it more pay than working on a machine. Men of a more mechanical turn of mind, but with no desire for responsibility, go into the tool-making departments where they receive considerably more pay than in production proper. But the vast majority of men want to stay put. They want to be led. They want to have everything done for them and to have no responsibility. Therefore, in spite of the great mass of men, the difficulty is not to discover men to advance, but men who are willing to be advanced.

Nothing has changed since, eh?

That is one of the reasons I let sleeping dogs lie, despite my intent to do so. Don’t want to get chased for all your troubles (experience is a bitter teacher!) 🙁

Best,
Surio.
—

I’m pretty sure that you stated before that you did all this FIRE stuff because you were worried about peak-oil, overpopulation, global warming and a bunch of other environmental things. The whole “freedom” thing was supposed to be a carrot to get people to live your version of a sustainable life.

As for the rest of the post, a few comments.

The first is about people liking obligations and debts. I’ve never met anyone who likes their debt, rather I met people for whom debt seemed like a good idea at the time and was supposed to be totally manageable. Then something happens and all of a sudden it isn’t. These people either lack foresight, are impulsive and immature, or just had really bad luck.

The second one is about people liking bosses. People who like having a boss as a general concept are those people who are excellent at getting things done, just not very good at initial conception. People who don’t mind having a boss are also those people who generally get along well with others.

Finally, I’ve noticed that most of your mentions of freedom are in a “freedom-from” format rather than a “freedom-to” format. You also rarely mention the limitations placed on you by having so little disposable income vis-a-vis the rest of consumer driven materialist society. I don’t know whether this is because you don’t notice them, don’t care (eg: your posts about hating to eat out and hating travel), or because SF is an incredibly great place to live.

Jacob,

I just wanted to take a minute to let you know that you’re definitely not alone. I’m a reader of your blog and someone pursuing financial indepencence. You express your frustration with what appears, from a totally rational perspective, to be people preferring to be in debt by blogging. I have found investing to be a satisfying (and highly profitable) outlet for those same feelings.

Keep up the good work. There are people reading who never or rarely comment and I know your work is appreciated.

I just recently wrote an article on my blog about “Freedom from debt” and definitely can understand where you are coming from Jacob.

http://www.threethriftyguys.com/?p=173

By taking on debt it is a person’s perception that the future is optomistic and that they will be able to meet these obligations. However, some people don’t view this as an obligation, but as a means to “get what they want now!”

At the same time I think many people have fallen too much into the railroad of life. Where they can’t get off the track of work, consume, and sleep. Thus continually being in a rut and not willing to drastically change their lifestyle. I think Jacob is merely offering a differing viewpoint of how many people (not particularly ERE readers) are unwilling to go to extreme measures to free themselves.

I think that people DO like their debts and obligations. So often I have been in groups of people who make the same as or more than I do–same # of kids or fewer–and the conversation turns to “BILLS” and how they can’t do this or that because of BILLS. And how expensive kids are. ETCETERA. I just nod in agreement, because I got sick of telling people it didn’t have to be that way.

Having to work and work eliminates choices–and, as we all know from the “Paradox of Choice”–too many choices make people crazy. It may seem like an odd way to eliminate choices–it’s certainly a self-destructive one.

This concept is what Seth Godin calls sheepwalking. It’s a variation of the “working dead.” Nobody thinks that they can innovate and the ones who believe in themselves and persevere are the ones who CAN.

Last night, I was reading a blog post entitled “College? Epic fail.” The author told me, “You can’t just up and move where you want to go. Wouldn’t we all love adventures? But they cost money, and it was money I didn’t have. And I still wouldn’t have the money, even if I had such an offer today. I hope to become location independent someday, but that doesn’t happen overnight. I am not there today, and have no way to get there at this time.”

I’m not saying that he can’t, but he’s spent 5 years out of college without a full time position. Yet he stays in the same small town in Maryland with limited opportunities for a poli sci major. Is that rational or is it simple inertia?

Jacob, I read your blog, in part because of how your brain is wired. I told my wife, recently that I like your blog because you can articulate the way I think. I am constitutionally incapable of being told what to do. I care little to chit chat with most people, but I find interesting things (problems) all around me, that I can help solve. My personal traits made me a fine living, by finding an environment that had interesting problems to solve. I was able to produce and was left to do my thing. If I was wired differently, I would have followed a different path. At one point in my life, I wished I could be a follower, but it was not meant to be. My career was spent mostly as a project engineer.

“Freedom comes with responsibility and responsibility requires people to choose. Choosing means having to think and most people hate to think.”

I think people are mostly afraid. Afraid of dying, afraid of their own emptiness, afraid of losing the support of their peers, afraid of launching themselves into an adventure and running out of money.

I’m afraid of running our of money. Therefore I’m not going to quit until I have a solid plan. You site helps a lot to put that plan together. It’s the investment part that keeps me searching for solutions. But that’s ok, because I have to wait anyway until a milestone at work that will help set me free. Until then I can prepare.

I’m an INTP, keeping my options open and procrastinating like a champ…

Jacob you’ll find airing your sheets on a clothesline (sunshine + fresh air) is almost as good as laundering them each day. Weather permitting, I air out the sheets and duvet each day.

Surio – maybe I do concede after all that some people “like” their debts.

Case in point – I have a friend that reads my blog who is deeply in debt. I talk about money with them off-line only a little bit because it’s crazy-making for me. And they only read my blog because they’re my friend I’m sure, they read no other PF blogs. In the last 8 or so months that I’ve been blogging, I can see small little changes happening in their spending that weren’t there before, but then they’ll go and blow money on something that they really NEEEEED (like a vacation). So I can only come to the conclusion that the in-debt lifestyle is the only way they know how to live – and perhaps that they may not like the debt itself, but they DO like spending all the money that is seemingly at their disposal (ie. available room on credit cards). It’s beyond frustrating.

They want my life and my money in the bank, but they don’t want to have to do what I had to do to get it (ie. not give themselves everything they want the moment that they want it).

In the meantime, they provide plenty of blog fodder, which is great since it’s hard for me to remember that mindset. But I wish I knew the magic words that would help them change.

It is much easier to go along with the mindless crowd in the short-term (whether by working 9-5, buying a house, shopping at the mall for recreation or watching TV) than to do what is better long-term and have to think about how daily decisions affect the plan.

The consumerist/marketing culture is deeply ingrained and very hard to break free of. How the hell did it get like this?