Success is a Gold Boat

A lot of us go through our lives feeling unhappy.  Much of our unhappiness stems from not feeling successful enough.  We don’t make enough money and we don’t have nice enough things.  People never want our autograph unless we’re buying something from them.  In short, we’re worried we don’t measure up, and it leaves us feeling unfulfilled.  A lot goes into feeling unsuccessful.

Part of our unhappiness comes from comparing ourselves to others, and part comes from chasing the wrong things.  What actually makes us happy, and what we chase, are too often very different.

In order to fix this we need to do something.  Two somethings, actually.  One, we need to stop comparing ourselves to others.  Two, we need to start chasing the right things.

My English teacher in high school said people use the word 'things' when they don't know what they're talking about. He was a smart guy.

The first part is pretty easy.  Come on, just stop comparing yourself to others already, won’t ya? Glad we got that one out of the way.

The second part is a little more complicated.  We need to figure out the right things to chase.  To do that we need to figure out what the right things are.  To do THAT we need to look at some of my stick figure drawings, because I spent a lot of time drawing them.

For this to make any sense you need to just go with me on a thought experiment that doesn’t make perfect sense but I’ve got a two month old and a full-time job so, this will have to do: Success is having a cool boat.

Pretend you’re in a boat in the middle of a big lake filled with boats.  You just plopped there one day.  Your only instruction is to be successful.

Each person has their own individual boat.  You have to work very hard to keep your boat operating smoothly.  If you stop working at it, your boat sinks.  Because it’s hard to keep a boat afloat, everyone has decided that the fancier a boat is the more successful the boat’s owner must be.  Since being successful is the only instruction, everyone around you is worried about how fancy their boat is.

Some boats are huge, some boats are tiny, and some boats don’t even float.  So, just so we’re all up to speed, traditional wisdom says you want a cool boat.

Yours looks like this:

Cute, huh?

You’re pretty happy with your boat.

It floats, there’s enough room to walk around, and you generally feel pretty great about it.

The more time you spend on the water, you start to look at all the other boats a little closer.   A few of them make you feel pretty great about your boat, but a few of them make you feel less happy with your boat.

It’s clear you don’t have the worst boat on the lake but you’re also nowhere near the top.

 

 

Now you feel more like this about your boat.

You float around for a while working hard to keep your boat in running order.  Once you get the hang of keeping it afloat, you’ll start making small upgrades so you feel better about your boat.  You’re a hard worker and you want people to see you as successful.

You tell yourself to keep your head up.  You’re doing alright.

But then, you come across this gold boat.

Compared to gold boat guy you’re a horrific failure.  You felt pretty good about your boat before, but now you see boats come in gold.  He’s more successful than you and there’s really nothing you can do about it.  No amount of cool flags or pirate decorations will make you as successful as gold boat guy.  This is pretty upsetting.

Nothing about your boat changed.  What changed is how you feel about it.  You’ve seen a fancier boat than the one you have and there’s no going back.

You start questioning your life choices as your world fills with doubt.  The song Total Eclipse of the Heart starts playing in your head for some reason.  It’s a confusing time.

Why is he so successful in a gold boat and you’re stuck in your plain old black marker boat?

You stew on this newfound realization that you’re a colossal failure and you can’t get that song out of your head.

Now you feel more like this about your boat.

Weird guy on the shore

We’re all chasing success, but defining success is hard.   Everyone out on the water seems to be basing their success on how nice of a boat they have.  But success isn’t about the things you own.  It’s about who you are and what you do with your time on Earth.

Your instructions were to be successful, not have the coolest boat.  Somewhere along the way someone decided success meant having a sweet boat and everyone just went along with it.

Everyone but this one weirdo on the shore.

The guy on the shore seems pretty happy, but it’s hard to tell whether or not he’s successful.  Everyone on the water spends all day working on their boat.  This guy doesn’t do that at all.  He doesn’t have a huge boat.  Actually, it’s unclear if he even has a boat at all.  He seems like he just runs around doing whatever he wants all day.

You stare at shore guy for a little while wishing you could join him for a bike ride, but you don’t have enough time.

Your boat needs constant upkeep and you’ll never be able to upgrade if you don’t keep your head down and keep working.

While you’re working away gold boat guy comes up beside you.  He’s taken you on as a charity case or something.  Maybe he just likes you.  I’m not really sure.

More time passes and you get to know gold boat guy a little better.  He seems happy on the outside but inside you know he’s a ball of stress.  He’s got the best boat on the lake and everyone is gunning for him.  He has to work twice as hard as everyone else just to keep his gold boat floating.

As embarrassed as you are by your black marker boat you start to not envy gold boat guy.  You wonder if the juice is really worth the squeeze.  What’s the point of spending all day working just to have a gold boat?

Eventually gold boat guy tells you he doesn’t even own his boat.  He’s just making payments on it.  He was once a guy in a black marker boat too, but he hated the idea of people thinking he wasn’t successful.  He was able to get a big enough loan to buy his dream gold boat, but he has to work night and day just to make the payments.

 

Redefining Success and Chasing FI

Not everyone defines success by who has the biggest boat.  Some people don’t care at all about boats.  Some people care about having the freedom to do whatever they want all day.  Shore guy is one of those people.  He seems like a good dude.

Instead of spending his time upgrading his boat he just paddled his way to shore.  Then he got out of his boat and started doing whatever he wants.

Everyone out on the lake considers gold boat guy the most successful guy around.  But, he spends all day trying to make sure he keeps his gold boat and he doesn’t even have a chance to enjoy it.  Shore guy just runs around doing whatever he wants because he decided to break the mold and not chase material possessions.  So who’s more successful?

 

 

You look at gold boat guy and the life you could have chasing gold boats.

Then you look at the shore and think about the life you could have if you went over there instead.

Success isn’t having a better boat.  Success is having the freedom to choose whether or not you want to be on the water.

There are people like shore guy who couldn’t care less about having a cool boat and instead spent their money buying their freedom.  Getting a gold boat isn’t what makes you successful.  We each get to decide what success is based on how we want our lives to be.  You don’t have to keep upgrading your boat.  You can refuse to play the game too.  Shore guy is waiting, and he’s got pancakes.

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