In my pursuit of wealth, freedom, aesthetics, and health, I’ve consistently fallen short. For years, I’ve held onto one core belief – maybe not philosophically sound, but deeply ingrained – that if I could just sort out the money part, everything else would fall into place. Fix the finances, and I’d have the freedom and headspace to fix my fatigue and brain fog, and transform my physique.
But here I am, 28 years old, still working the same casual retail job I’ve had since I was 16, just going in circles…
“Why!?” you might ask. Why stay stuck in neutral for over a decade?
It’s tempting to blame it all on the issues that have plagued me, having lost a lot of productivity during what should have been the best years of my life to crippling mental illness (anxiety & DPDR) and chronic fatigue/brain fog due to gut issues and food reactivity. But ultimately it’s just because I’ve fucked up a lot. And not necessarily because I’ve stayed in retail, but because I haven’t capitalized on the freedom that working casually afforded me. Which was supposed to be the whole point.
I realized early on that for the vast majority of people earning a salary doesn’t equal wealth, and it definitely doesn’t lead to freedom. So I endeavoured to try a different route. I opted for time. I stayed casual, lived modestly, and invested what I could as I wasn’t sitting on any million dollar business ideas. Though I still tried my hand at a few business ventures – mostly unsuccessfully. Despite a lot of initial buoyant success with my investing career, I still had a lot to learn. And some lessons can only be learned the hard way.
To make a long story short, I’ve been in the doldrums for a while now. Alternating between periods of momentary inspiration to smothering depression, struggling with my health, getting nowhere with my goals, and being a financial drain on my partner.
Earlier this year I saw a naturopath for the fatigue and brain fog that’s been dogging me for years. She ran some VEGA testing – not something I was totally sold on scientifically – but the results were hard to ignore. All my known food triggers lit up like a Christmas tree.
But what really hit home?
My stress levels were at 90%. My adrenals? Maxed out at 100%.
The Naturopath was shocked. Firstly because I present as laid-back, and also because that’s unsurprisingly a pretty bad result… Turns out that constant failure, and constant financial anxiety have taken root even deeper than I might have thought. And all that freedom that I thought my casual employment afforded me, isn’t all that liberating after all..
Better Late Than Never
If something isn’t working, no matter how much you might’ve wanted it to, you’ve got to have the courage to accept it and move on. Unfortunately I’ve been kidding myself for a while now, but better late than never I’ve made the decision to surrender some of my freedom for a more conventional working arrangement. I’ve stepped back from my obsessive quest for freedom-at-all-costs and traded in my casual status for a permanent part-time role. Still in retail, still the same company – baby steps for now. But at a new store, with much greater security, routine and importantly – income.
It’s not hyperbole to say that the effect has been life-changing already. I still need to make A LOT more money in the long-term, but the guarantee of income each week has taken some of the pressure off and given me the stability and ironically more freedom to work toward my goals in a less outcome-obsessed way. I’ve been dialing in my training and nutrition, making progress with my health recovery and am making enough money that I can start allocating a percentage of my income to crypto again in preparation for the coming surge as per my investing thesis. And most importantly I feel like I’m stepping up my game as a first-time Dad to our 3.5 month old son.
I’m building momentum, and that can be powerful. Expect lots of upcoming content: I’ll be talking about my ongoing skinny-fat body transformation, my fatigue/brain fog recovery approach, my investing thesis and how crypto is going to change my financial fortunes, and revisit some things from my past like how I recovered from DPDR. Hope to see you there.
All the best,
Remy.
Toomanymind 