FIRE and Living with A Sense of Belonging

A trial retired life–what changes

I am one and a half months into my trial of a retirement life. Before this, I was a professor working extremely hard in my career–publishing and improving myself as an educator.  80 hours a week was normal. Sometimes, this kind of schedule was due to external circumstances such as publishing or perish, but often it was because it would require me to move to a city that was one and half hours’ drive away.   Otherwise, I lived in a college town. And, unlike male faculty members who often dated professional students, single female faculty had nearly zero options.

Financially, not having a constant income from work does not make a big difference in my life. It only has a marginal effect on me at most.  I have accumulated a few million dollars through thrifty living. The same goes for the social structure my former job provided because the department and the school I had a post was very small, and  I was the only person in my niche area.   Research-wise, there is zero change.  I am still revising and starting new projects in my retirement-like life.  However, getting a paper accepted by a journal does not add much excitement or a sense of achievement. My research often concerns high-level strategic decisions in supply chain/operations management. I do not see the impacts of this type of research.

In my personal life, I am still single and the hope of finding a good match is close to zero. Nor do I have other social circles partly because I relocate every three or four years, but mainly because I am a first-generation immigrant. Unless popping children of my own with a partner, building a social nuclear is hard for a new immigrant despite the US being a melting pot as people often say, and very much so true. This window of bringing children into the world had closed since I did not have time and the opportunity to meet the right partner in my allotted child-bearing years. This being said, I still keep in contact with several friends back in China from childhood and high school through social media and see them personally on my once-a-year summer trip to China.

As to physical activity and recreation, starting from Sept 1, the day I started my experimented retirement, I have been hiking one day a week, primarily because I am in the prime location for the great outdoors, and it is the prime season for hiking.  Since I am most likely to move in the next year, I feel the urge to enjoy the great outdoors my current location offers.  I have been to two of the most scenic trails on the outskirts of Denver within one and half hours’ drive.     

Finding out that being free from occupation changes my life minimally,  I occasionally wake up amid the night with the big question: what should I do for the remainder of my life to feel rejuvenated and alive？

During my one-month visit with family and friends in China, I did enjoy spending time with my seven-year-old niece, old-school friends, cousins, and siblings. Their lives are busy and seem prospering.  That’s because offspring brings changes to one’s life: kids start talking, walking, running, going to school, going to college, starting a career, getting married, and having their children. Children’s life marks the passage of time. Seeing the marks of life consolates our soul: time has not been wasted, it leaves meaningful marks before it slips away. People without children do not have this opportunity of their own. True, you can still see kids of your relatives grow and enjoy, but the joy is different. It’s like watching someone else swimming happily in a pool, you experience a kind of joy, but it simply cannot be compared to the experience of you yourself jumping into the water   and swimming.    In short, lacking of meaningful relationships, I feel I am living a full life.

Fire is only a small fraction of our life no matter how important it is

So after all, despite focusing your life on FIRE is prudent, it does not solve problems non-money related. There is an old Chinese saying, “trees live in barks, people live in reputation.” Honestly earning a reputation not only makes our life smoother but also gives it meaning.   The problem is that our circle of influence is fickle at best in an internet age and in an ultra-market-driven post-industrial country. Life is in constant change. A stable community online or offline lacks.  Online communities are as fickle as clouds, and offline communities such as your neighbors, and meetup groups also change at a somewhat slower pace, because every summer you see for sale signs popping up in front of houses. Your physical communities last barely longer than fast-fashion clothing bought from stores or online. Perhaps this constant flux and changes and lack of sense of belonging contribute to the high depression rate in the country.  Reputation matters only if there is a relatively stable social circle.  Now, it is replaced by an online persona–or a facade, projected through social media such as Facebook, Instagram in the US, WeChat in China.

The sense of not belonging grew over the years after I moved to this new country. It was not that I did not make friends through study and work. Friendship petered after moving and relocating every few years.  Back in my hometown where the residents share a common surname, industrialization and urbanization are also spreading rapidly,  the generation of my parents and in a weaker sense, my generation, still enjoy a stable community because we know several generations of our peers up to their grandparents.  People barely change jobs; if they do, they do not root themselves up, often staying in the same city or region. Holidays like Chinese New Year often bring them back to town for several days. In a sense, there is a time in a year when my peers can connect, see each other, chat, and shake hands.  This kind of connection is already weaker compared with that of my parents’ generation because they never leave the land where they were born. Yet, however brief, this five-sense connection is much stronger than decades of Facebook-friend online connections， just as a newborn needs physical touch to develop normally  In short, for most people, building friendship and having a sense of belonging adds tastes and meaning to our lives after meeting basic financial needs no longer worries us.

With this winding probing and discussion above, I think of Maslow’s five categories of needs of human beings: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. In this theory, higher needs in the hierarchy emerge when people feel they have sufficiently satisfied the previous need. Money (FIRE) provides insurance for the first two base needs.  All five needs are interdependent, and the first two are the bedrock.  Physiological needs also require a healthy body and mind. Money can buy healthcare, but not health.   Maintaining a healthy exercise routine and diet is the bedrock of a fulfilling life.  Without the bottom two needs, the top three will collapse; the top three needs cannot be fulfilled if one lives in a cave on a high mountain. Love, esteem, and self-actualization can be realized only through relationships, in a community and society; in short, living in this world, not out of the world (elsewhere in a paradise). 

FIRE removes many obstacles for us to fulfill the first two needs. For the top three, we will need to work on ourselves first to build a community around us where we feel a sense of belonging, of a sense of being useful, and of being recognized in whatever way we are best at doing.

A Zen story

Spiritual leaders often advise we need to look within. I am not sure about it.   I still rely on the without to see the reflection of myself.  Without others, I will lose myself.      Let me end this post with a story in Chinese Zen.

In the Tang dynasty, the fifth Zen master, Hong Ren, was looking for the next Zen master to carry the gown and bowl, the symbol of Zen. One of his most prominent disciples, Shenxiu, wrote an Agatha on the wall:

” The body is a Bohdi tree, and the mind is like a mirror platform. Wipe it frequently and do not let it cause dust.”

The sixth Zen master, Huineng, then, the newest and most junior member, who is illiterate, asked  a colleague to write the following Agatha in reply:

“Bodhi has no tree, nor is a mirror a platform; there is nothing in itself, where can dust be stirred up?”

Then Huineng got the gown and bowel at midnight from the fifth Zen Master and was appointed the sixth Zen master. 

Perhaps life itself has no meaning or actualization because we are essentially one.

Summary and plan

FIRE is one of our life goals. I will continue to exercise and keep a healthy diet so I will have a healthy body to live my life. I will continue to enjoy reading, music, and meditation to bring me closer to Huineng’s wisdom level, if only for a micro-millimeter.