Financial Freedom: A Reflection on the Country’s Independence Day Celebration.
We defined ‘freedom’ when we no longer had anyone ruling over us; no rules or conditions that restrict us, and we decided that it was time for us to move forward with our own sovereignty over our resources to pursue our dreams — thus being independent of others.
During the pandemic, there are lots of learning opportunities sporadically coming out from different directions and more people are exposed to the idea of “financial freedom”. This wasn’t around when I was still in university, and to my surprise, many others also didn’t get exposed much; getting a job and managing our payroll were not necessarily part of the student's orientation or capacity-building program on campus — we sort of had to teach that ourselves and cried in solidarity. Good for you if you have been managing yourselves well from early on.
Even more so, investing appears to be drawing attention from all directions. Many have spoken about their “success” stories making it sounds like there is a playbook, like following the candy trail, for achieving financial freedom because someone has done it and it worked for them (good for them!). It is such an exciting world to explore because we probably had never really thought of such a thing possible. We knew how people get rich but not all of us knew that at some point, they could just sit down and ‘make the money works’ for them through investing (just another reminder of how amazing it is to have open information on the internet). Our eyes sparkle at the prospect of gaining freedom; a monetary value, the comfort of purchasing and doing things — getting rid of the situation that limits them.
This is such a classic “zero to hero” story, but let’s ask ourselves this: hypothetically speaking, if you can fulfill all your basic needs for a year, then you’re provided a certain large amount of money, would you invest it in mutual funds or pay for a health insurance premium? Some may choose to invest it, some may use it to pay several premiums in advance. Why do we choose to invest it and why do we choose to pay for insurance premiums? How do we weigh in the choices? Do we just like a monetary value gain that we can see next year better? Do we just hate the risk of losing an opportunity to gain something? One can very well protect us in the short-term but the other one still needs time to build up. One sounds more promising and seems like there aren’t many negative impressions to it, simple give-and-take understanding, while the other one just has too many layers of conditions that are just hard to follow.
Do we prepare by having more of something,
or reducing the chances for it to occur?
Although it is not wrong to plan for achieving financial freedom or planning to retire early, is it an attainable goal for us as individuals? Imagine the pressure to have everything ready, accumulating money, before a certain age. The hours and the mental weight it will take. The few steps that someone has already taken before us. There are lots of important milestones that need to be achieved first so either someone has to tell us that, or we need to stand firm, not easily swayed by the idea that reaching for the stars means we should have a laser-sharp focus in aiming for one thing, ignoring the other things that we could’ve paid attention more to along the way.
And if it is attainable, how can we make the process healthy for us considering the undertaking? We all have our capacity and I don’t mean to downgrade anyone’s but let’s imagine all the burdens that could have been eased. Does the burden rest on our own shoulders? Think about it for briefly a second, putting aside the distrust, skepticism, or preference. Welfare program. Accessible education and economic opportunities. We should not also forget the inclusivity of access; when some of us still can’t open a bank account to start putting money in.
Being in an independent state of a country that supposedly, do not reprieve us from education, economic, and equal opportunities, are individuals really solely responsible for all of them? It is tricky in infusing this idea because it clouds the responsibilities of others who have resources or authority to protect people like us from the risks that we are trying to avoid by achieving financial freedom. Even worse, when the dream is being sold, to exploit people who put their trust in people who “show them the way”. It is not unlikely.
We are led to believe that we can get rid of problems with our own power, with the help of the assets that we obtain over the years. And that sometimes, we will remove ourselves from the steering wheel; no longer being responsible for our own. Rather than focusing on eliminating problems once and for all, why not also try to live through them? Expect them and be prepared when they come around. Life is about a series of decisions that can increase or reduce our chances. If we invest, we increase the chance of gaining something, but let’s not forget that if we have a good insurance program, we reduce the chance of having to put more money somewhere. Also, expect more support although the situation may be a little too difficult to put that kind of trust somewhere.
What happens after we have it all, fingers crossed, that constitutes “financial freedom”? What happens after we have the luxury of having an abundance of everything that we want? Does it give us confidence in facing the uncertainties? (asking for a friend because I still need to fill up my bank account, so I am curious how it feels to have it all?).
There’s a difference between gaining and being independent. Gaining independence is just a leap in our process of becoming independent to pursue our goals as there are still many blank pages in the history book. Imagine the first time we can decide what we wanted to eat, wear, or go; then when we get to decide what we want, we still have to wake up every morning accomplishing a list of things so we can continue to choose what we eat. Remember that being able to choose and work for it is already ‘freedom’ to so many people, so does not being indebted to someone or for something. There are still a load of decisions to be made and challenges to be faced after we can stand up for ourselves. Is being financially independent a recurring process? Is freedom really all about getting to do what we want, not about the efforts in moving through the barriers in this war called life? Is financial freedom the solution to all our problems?
