Really watching it from somewhere and not just reading it off Wikipedia.
Some time near the end the main character, Peter says... "What's so wrong with that?"
Quote is below. "Ego" is his dad who has god-like powers, so Peter has inherited it, but apparently if daddy dies then Peter loses his powers as well.
Ego: "Listen to me! You are a god! If you kill me, you'll be just like everybody else!"
Peter: "What's so wrong with that?"
Ego: "No!"
--Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
So I was thinking, what's so wrong about that.
In the FIRE, frugal, ER, Semi ER community, this topic happens a lot.
People generally judge this community as lazy, not ambitious, or wasting their talent, etc.
What a waste of our lives. We could be so much more, achieve so much more, earn so much more.
Whatever.
And I used to think, "What's so wrong about that?"
I define my own path and walk it, and so do many of us.
But then I flipped that idea and that way of thinking around a little.
And I came to another conclusion.
Hey, I'm successful in my own way. I'm the unique one. The other folk are the normal ones who's chasing corporate positions or flashing their high expense lifestyles for everyone to see.
My ambition is to live a fruitful life without having to go through the pain of corporate drudgery for a significant portion of my lifespan. And I've somewhat managed to achieve it.
So actually, I can't say "what's so wrong about that..." cos... I/we should be the ones asking the normal folk, aren't you bored of your lame existence working a corporate job that you probably don't like? (Some people love their jobs so that's fine.) Cos there's a lot of folks who are unhappy with their jobs or dissatisfied, and they remain dissatisfied for a significant part of their whole lives.
Or they're so pressured by the normal people to be normal and it's perceived as successful to be normal? But then... what's so special about that? That's an easy success. If I'd stayed on in my old job, I'd have reached a certain position by the time I reached 50. But then again... most people would live a similar lifestyle.
By leaving my job early, aren't I the one being unique? Am I not living a lifestyle which most people would love to do for themselves?
Now, there are people doing meaningful work, like doctors, farmers, etc, providing good necessary stuff for consumers. But what do most people achieve at the end of their careers? Did they help anyone? Probably no. Many folks will be at a certain level in their corporate hierarchy, very much like their peers. Did they do anything good in their lives, nope, then?? What so special about that? What kind of "potential" did they manage to live up to?
So when people tell me I've wasted my life or when I don't live up to my potential, I wonder... where do most people end up at the end of their careers? Usually, nowhere. What potential is there to live up to? Haven't they also wasted their lives as well? They just earned money. It's not like they made a difference to someone's lives or saved someone's life, or produced a useful product for society. Most folks are usually corporate drones.
Success has always been quantified with money and earning money isn't too difficult. Most people just work for it. And yet, what success is it to be doing what everyone else is doing? Does being a senior manager at a company mean I am successful? Then is the cook behind a restaurant not successful? Is a farmer not successful? There is a higher chance that you will be affected by what a farmer does more than a corporate drone.
Personally, I think, if I'm comparing against doctors, teachers, nurses, people who impact lives, yes I think I am not living to that potential, cos I think there is meaning to providing such valuable services to society. So if I have the capacity to help someone and change someone's life, and I did not do it, then yes I think I did not live up to my fullest potential. But if I'm just comparing my old job as a corporate drone, vs another senior manager corporate drone, then nope, I don't think he is anymore successful than me, I don't think that he has developed or lived up to any potential cos... sorry, I fail to appreciate what potential it is to be a senior manager in a company.
So I do think that the ambition of FIRE, ER, Semi ER, Frugality lifestyles extremely ironic. We are the unique ones who are striving for something which is not ordinary, and yet when we achieve it, we are deemed failures in the general society cos we aren't chasing the normal dreams of a salaried worker living and working til 60+ and retiring and taking care of grandkids after that.
Weird, but so very true.
Next time if someone asks why you have no ambition you can answer, I have an ambition to be ER or FI or Semi ER, and I have succeeded in it.
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