Death Of Teacher.

Don't let me scare you with the blog title there.  I'm not dead nor am I dying in the traditional sense.

I've been feeling very depressed lately and haven't felt the energy to keep regular updates on the blog.  Don't worry I didn't fall out of my frugal habits, as the monthly expense updates have shown, but things at work have taken a turn for the worse and the money isn't feeling "worth it" anymore.

Well I suppose to get specific my job is now half a dream and half a nightmare.  Unfortunately the nightmare half keeps me up at night, stresses me out, and is changing me.  Even my GF points out that "I never used to say things like that," "Never used to talk like that about work," etc.

Normally I'd just throw in the towel and call it a day.  I'm a guy with experience and think my skills are valuable.  I'm pretty sure It wouldn't be all that difficult to find some part time gigs that pay me up to what I am making now while having more flexible hours, or just getting a new job.  I also have a good work ethic.  Which in this case means I want to stay loyal to the "dream" part of my job.  There are quite a few students who are counting on me to be there for them.  This is what is keeping me there now.

However that means having to put up with the "nightmare" half which I really really really don't want to do.  But my contract runs until next March.  All it seems I can do is count the days ever so slowly.

I'm trying to expand my options using TreeHouse to learn how to program iOS applications.  I'm pretty impressed so far with the trial lessons they make available on their website.  At only $25 a month it seems like a frugal/smart way to improve my skills and possibly move into a new career.

It's three more weeks until summer vacation which means I'll get about two months to relax.  I already know that it won't be easy as I'm just going to be counting the days until term two starts and that will keep me up at night.  I'd like to be very productive during these two months however and focus on TreeHouse as well as working part time to earn some extra cash.

A blog I like to read often is called Rob Evolves.  On there he posted a link to a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic that really opened my eyes.  I'll reproduce the text of the comic here but please check out his blog and SMBC as well.

"Here is something true:  One day you will be dead.
Here is something false:  You only live once.
It takes about seven years to master something.
If you live to be 88 after age 11, that is, you have 11 opportunities to be great at something.
These are your lifetimes.
Most people never let themselves die.
Some are afraid of death.
Some think they are already ghosts.
But you have many lives.
Spend a life writing poems.
Spend another building things.
Spend a life looking for facts.
Spend another looking for the Truth.
These are your lifetimes.
Use them."

I feel that the teacher in me is slowly being killed at my current position.   I'm finding it harder and harder to push the peddles on my bike each morning and feel like I can't peddle away fast enough at the end of the day.  That's never a good way to start or end your days.  I've been a teacher in Japan for nearly six years and if I finish my contract it would be a little under seven years.  Almost one life.

I'm not afraid of "death" in the sense of changing myself but I am worried about what it means for my FI journey.

I could continue this life on life support for another seven years, spend another life, and be FI as a teacher.  But I don't think that is the journey I want to take anymore.  After all it's not about killing yourself to get to FI.  I really don't want to spend my time at a job I hate becoming a bitter husk of a once formerly happy and energetic man just to limp across the finish line and be spat out a different person.

And yet I feel that staying through to the end of my contract is in a way doing the same thing.  I'll finish up in March bitter and unhappy.  Not that a change in my life at that point can't turn things around again.  But the feeling of free fall and loss of control over the next several months will drive me crazy.

Perhaps that is just part of the journey from one life to the next.

My goal is still financial independence but the path to get there is changing.