Is it really so easy?

I'll be honest, I've gotten used to getting emails from optionsxpress.com now.  I get updates about thing like webinars, newsletters, etc.  Of course I also get emails about pending dividends.  All of these things have become just another email in my inbox.

When I first started investing back in January of 2012 I remember getting one of my first emails saying that I would receive an $8.00ish dividend from Pepsi Co. I believe.  A light went off in my head and I remember thinking "It can't be this easy."  Okay sure, $8.00 isn't a whole lot of money really.  A few beers or a meal at a fast food restaurant.  But it was free.  Or at least it felt like free.  Someone was just "giving" me $8.00.  It felt too easy.

Of course I was getting that $8.00 because I had given the company almost two hundreds times that amount.  But the crazy thing was was that I didn't have any plans for that money anyway.  I normally had been spending that money on student loan payments so it wasn't as if my life felt affected in any way.  Except that now I was investing instead of paying off my debts.  I'll also add that my life has been pretty sweet.  Even while paying down my debts aggressively I traveled, ate and drank out, visited home, and bought gadgets.  Maybe I've reigned in some of that spending a bit, but that reduced spending has in no way affected my happiness.  In fact the reduced spending, increased investing, and perpetually raising dividends have put me into a state of euphoria.  Well that and the bike riding.  

Like I said I'm used to getting the emails now.  "Pending cash dividend..." it usually says.  Then the amount and a date and a "amounts might not show up right away" blah blah blah.  What I'm still not used to is the feeling of how easy this all seems.  

How is this not the norm!?  Doesn't everybody want freedom?

After all sites that taught me how/why to get on this road get more hits in an hour than I have since the inception of this blog (just passed 10,000 after a year and a half!  Wahoo!)  I'm no rocket scientist.  In fact to share a little secret with you I've never even looked at a balance sheet since a marketing class in college.  And yet here I am, on my way.  How/Why/WTF are people not figuring this out?

I know I am on my way because I've done the math and I see where it goes.  I was skeptical at first.  Especially when I went into the red for a spill.  But the longer I've been on this path the more I am convinced I'm on my way to a place called Choice.  It will be bumpy.  But I am going there nonetheless.  

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.