Do these posts get boring? It’s a rhetorical question, don’t answer if you think they do… I like living in my little bubble. Anyway… The man behind the blog Free-quentFlyerBook, often called FQF (and worse things) had the audacity to disagree with a previous post of mine, talking about the idea of breaking routine. I’ve got to clear up a few things:
MATT THINKS OUR LIMITING FACTOR IS TIME AND ATTENTION; I THINK IT’S VALUE
Nope, its time and attention.
I have unlimited time and attention (this is my job)
That doesn’t mean unlimited, because in any one day there remains 24hrs, and in any one hour 60 minutes. Time is limited, and our time on earth is limited also. Beyond the morbid truth that our time here is finite, there are phases within our life which are critically important. I’m sure that there are better ways to describe them, but broadly speaking we have:
- Basic skills phase (school, then college to learn how things work) this is generally a consumption phase, we earn little and burn a lot… but we invest in ourselves.
- Accumulation phase (work/business/etc) earning money, often having to pay of debt, and saving for retirement.
- Post accumulation phase (retirement/FIRE) spending money, returning to a consumption phase, with passive income fueling the consumption.
To say you have unlimited time to earn points does mean that you are stepping out of the cycle – and what does that mean in the broader picture? While breaking the cycle can be cool, and can be successful, it does put pressure onto future obligations.
Breaking the habit
What happens if instead of thinking ‘my time is unlimited’ you flip that around and force yourself to carve out real ‘work’ time. You can argue all you like that MS and a blog is a job, but I can also argue that it is not, it can be done really effectively as a hobby. The proof – well, me. And since FQF is much smarter than I am, I’m sure he can do it too. If work isn’t your thing, what about carving out time for family, for education, for traveling to enjoy your labor? At some point, you need to think about other obligations, and it is very easy to discount the importance of your presence within them.
The problem though, is that unless you break what you know, you’ll never understand your limits – and that is the core of my original post.
So many people are wrapped up in their own worlds and own routines that they never realize what else they could achieve. That isn’t to say what they have done already is wrong, or bad, but simply that it might be a drop in the ocean of their potential. When we look at points and miles and habits, we get so wrapped up in the little things that we blinker ourselves to the broader picture.
We chase $10 gigs like cats chase their own tails… we get blogs writing about ‘potential drama and YMMV and targeted stuff’, only to write another post saying how we can all relax because they analyzed the situation and reached out to their contacts and other such stuff and now its all ok.. guys, you’ve got to get out of your own head.
The entire purpose of my post ‘Flipping your sh!t’ was to remind us that unless we are willing to break what we cling onto, we can never reach our true potential. It’s really hard to do, but you’ll never know what your life might be like until you try.
Here’s FQF’s post, it’s a good read.
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Hey Matt,
I found myself in total agreement with the first original post, and am also on board here, with your clarifications and further unpackings.
My only quibble is with you using “achieve,” as in “what else they could achieve.” Sure, it’s a word-choice issue, but a big part of your two posts–for me–is calling out for gathering Experiences, not reaching Achievements.
Enjoy your writings. Thanks, and keep being honest & out there, even if-when-regardless of whether the more provocative edges ruffle some of your readers’ feathers.
I’m not a great wordsmith, so it might be a poor choice… But I do somewhat look at the way we move through life and how we can reach our potential. Gathering experiences is crucial, but it is ‘consumption phase’ vs reaching potential which may include giving back to our world in a ‘production phase’
For two and a half years, up until the end of July I’d been spending a ton of time reading the blogs and forums daily in the pursuit of cheap travel. I was hooked and we started to triple the amount we were getting away each a year. Getting into this hobby has changed our lives as we’ve discovered an incredible passion for travel. Not the kind where you fly half way across the world to stay in a 5 star hotel when you could’ve stayed in the same type of place just a few hours away. Wait, wait, let me get back to the point…
Anyway, we finally hit our limitation on time (ironic) because we were completely maxing out our time off work. So then I poured my spare time into trying to either find even cheaper ways of travel or MSing for cashback . Then came the post “going from a 10 dollar gig to a 1,000 dollar gig.” Matt, that one hit me like a ton of fucking bricks and woke me up. Why the Hell was I spending so much time learning and applying things to make a few bucks here and there?
Since that article, I’ve spent hardly any time on the hobby except checking in on my top 2-3 bloggers every week or so and have really limited the time I spend checking twitter. I’ve focused hard on creating a “side-gig,” or hustle for my wife and I. That big mind shift was about 2 and a half months ago. Now, we’re about 6 months from getting away from the daily grind that is working 9-5 (more realistically 9-9), becoming location independant and travelling full time.
Not only will we go from spending a long weekend or maybe a couple weeks in a location to spending a few months or more but we’ll be working a fraction of what we have been. All I’ve really done is take the time from one hobby and focus it into going after what I really value most. That’s our time, experiencing new things and setting us up for future success.
So yea, I had to comment on this one – proof is in the pudding here. If you haven’t read the article I’m referring to, please do, it’s a game changer. Find it here > https://goo.gl/IcQLtm
And Matt, sorry (I’m not sorry) for not being active on the blog. I think I just posted once… to ask where our first place living abroad should be!
Shu ha ri