We all love our job, we earn $3k a month, and work 5 days a week between 8am - 8pm.
The job is pretty flexi so there's a lot of free time in between. We encourage people to achieve their fitness goals. And we really like what we do.
There's not much career progression but that's pretty ok.
Usually, as gym instructors, we do not have other qualifications to do other work.
So we haven't experienced a 9am - 6pm working culture in a political environment.
We haven't had the feeling of earning $7k per month.
(Some good instructors can earn $5k and above. So I'm not discounting instructors and their income, it depends on a lot of factors.)
Looking at this scenario, would we desire to retrain ourselves to go towards a corporate job?
We may think... "woah those corporate guys earn so much. Oh well, but they have their own stress. I'm happy where I am, I put food on the table and stay healthy. Maybe it's their job that makes them unhealthy and they have to come to me to get fit again."
But cos we are already happy and earning a fair amount, there's no real push factor to drive us to make changes to move to a better place. Cos it's already a good place, why bother moving.
And for those who have changed jobs before, we all know, more pay with a lousy working environment is just not worth it. Changing jobs/roles is like a dice roll. You can negotiate a better pay but you may end up in a bad shit hole.
Probably none of us would be here reading this post. I probably also won't be writing this post. Cos I wouldn't have thought of "early retirement".
It's interesting to think that depending on where our starting points were, how much different things could have been.
It's like... "if only I married the right guy/girl"
If we marry the right person, we wouldn't know how miserable it is to marry the wrong person.
But if we marry the wrong person, then... "Aiyoo, maybe I should divorce him, every day quarrel, he's so unreasonable, but things aren't really bad yet, maybe I'll divorce him next year, etc etc..."
If only I had known earlier. I would not have married him/her.
Doesn't it sound very much like your job?
Let's think about it another way...
Now you're not happy with your job you make $7k a month, you are miserable at work. Sounds familiar?
You work 9am - 7pm, you are glad weekends are here. You hate Mondays.
Ok now someone suggests being a gym instructor. But you only earn $3k...
There's a high chance you would say... "Aiyooo $3k only. Don't wan la."
So it's actually quite amazing that our minds are so flawed.
Doesn't it sound extremely irrational?
If we started out as a gym instructor and earned $3k, and we are happy, we wouldn't have thought very much of retraining to be a corporate drone.
But if we start off as a corporate drone, and earn $7k, we are pretty much unwilling to take a pay cut to be a gym instructor...
(Of course we won't really know IF we would REALLY be happy as a gym instructor.)
Same as for marrying the wrong partner.
After marrying a bad partner, "aiyoo so miserable, everyday we both not very happy, he does his own things, I do my own things, we try not to interfere with each other, else sure quarrel one. If only I had known, I wouldn't have married him."
But more often than not, as long as the relationship isn't abusive, many couples stay in this kinda relationship for very long. (With or without kids, generally, there is inertia to get the divorce done.)
If we look at it another way, and we didn't marry the person, "woah, heng I found out before I married him/her. I'm so glad that I didn't get married."
But if we wouldn't have married the person in the first place, if we knew of whatever the reason was, then logically, we should divorce the person. Cos we would have remained single anyway.
I'm not saying that I'm always rational and can always make the right decision.
I've made many of such decisions myself.
There may be many other considerations as well. And some of you might say the way I look at it is too simplistic.
I agree. It is simplistic. But even in it's most simplistic form, most people will not reverse a wrong decision. More often than not, people will rather dig in deeper in that bad decision hoping that it will get better. It's just the way most humans work.
Maybe it's pride, that reversing is admitting they made a wrong decision.
Or fear that others would view them as indecisive, whatever.
Some folks aren't like that, they are willing to make changes and correct their mistakes/wrong decisions. I find that usually, these people are rare, most people would rather stick to their decision and hope it works out.
In investing, it's called "cut loss" vs "I hope it recovers".
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