Fear of Financial Insecurity: A Path to True Freedom

This week, I've really tested freedom again after 12 years.

The last time I remember feeling truly free, without the weight of social pressure on my shoulders, was in the summer of 2011 after I was admitted to university. I felt like I had my entire life ahead of me. I had entered with the second-highest grade among all those who took the exam that year. Knowing that my parents could support my education and living expenses until I graduated and landed my first job was a huge relief. I had no obligations, family responsibilities, or day-to-day worries about household chores.

Just that at the time, I didn’t realize it was such a luxury to be in that position.

The only pressing thought I had then is to achieve (financial) independence as quickly as possible. In the culture I grew up in, this translates to working tirelessly, being ambitious, and pushing hard. I wasn’t familiar with the term 'chasing' back then.

In my second year of university, I applied for my first internship. After 6 months, I was offered a permanent position and joined the team as a junior engineer.

That was my entrance into the corporate world.

I’ve never had any other type of work other than what I'm doing now - IT engineering in corporations, and for most of my adult life, I’ve been surrounded by traditional pathways for earning a living — most of which translate into 9-to-5 jobs. My parents have held very traditional and stable jobs in the hospital sector, making them almost the first generation in my family to have actual 'jobs'; the rest of my family were simple farmers. Modest poor class. 

Now, as an adult, I realize that I did not receive any sort of financial education home or throughout my school years. The most common advice I received was from my parents to get good grades, attend a reputable university, and work hard to secure a job. Make sure I earn good money and afford a good life. It was a genuine and well intended advice.

Now, at 32, I am finally able to admit that my entire life has been centered around a psychology which I believe is extremely common — however, not many are able to acknowledge it within themselves, at least not yet. 

It’s the fear of being without money that drives me to work hard. 

This fear was instilled in me from childhood, even without my conscious awareness of it. It's that fear which has established my routine of getting up, going to work, working hard, paying the bills, and then continuing to work even harder. It has turned me into a saver, always hoping that maybe I’ll earn to save enough to overcome this fear.

But now, I might have changed the way I perceive things — I believe no amount of money will ever allow one to overcome the fear, nor will it make the chase and the rat race stop. Because I believe that once someone finally has money, they’ll start fearing the loss of it, being terrified of losing everything. I think it requires a mindset change, one that shifts us from working out of fear of not having money to understanding the true power of money. 

Money is important and powerful, don't get me wrong. 

However, I believe the relationship most of us have with money isn't healthy; it's rather toxic, as it's driven by fear.

Over the last 12 years, I’ve increased my annual holiday allowance from 21 days to 27.

In recent years, I've managed to afford 1 or 2 vacations per year to continents other than Europe, along with a few city breaks or returns to my home country, maybe 2-3 times per year. When I mention affording these trips, I refer to two aspects: the financial means, of course, but also having the luxury of time. 

20-something days a year really isn’t much, especially when life events occur, and you might need to set aside a few of those days for “life happening” aspects. 

The week before my holidays has always been hectic. In fact, I think I have developed some sort of anxiety.

Despite how much I try to proactively plan and prep for my leave, it has been a trend of overwhelming 1-2 days before taking my first day off. I’ve always been the type of person that prioritises making sure I’m not leaving behind people or projects in the air, so has been important to me to make sure I delegate everything, I give people context and people know who to reach out for what in my absence. 

Obviously, as with anything else, that extra energy comes on a default busy schedule, nobody makes room for such extras - so my approach has always been squeeze things in, ensure all tasks are completed, and push through. 

Now, please, I don’t want to start the whole discussion about prioritizing smartly or working efficiently — I’m sure we both can relate to this type of situation. We know the feeling of being in a busy period, and even the task of canceling meeting invites in your calendar for the time you’re away can feel overwhelming. 

In most cases, I’ve tried to 'be smart' and take advantage of the weekend days to save some days off and afford a longer holiday. In most cases, that usually translated into leaving on Friday evening or Saturday early morning.

So, my week ahead of the holiday would be something like - things would get busier and busier at the beginning of the week, by Wednesday I’d already feel overwhelmed, and by Friday absolutely drained. My plans of easily packing across the week would not materialize either, as each day I’d either need to look after other life things or feel exhausted.

I’d feel happy about the upcoming trip but not excited. I wouldn’t even have the space to think much of it.

If leaving on Friday evening, it would mean finishing up my luggage on Thursday - most likely, Thursday evening I’d still be washing some laundry till midnight.

Before leaving on Friday, I’d hope I could get 5 minutes here and there to throw a few other bits in my luggage in between some meetings. 

My overall state of mind and spirit would be hectic - very agitated, hard to get any good 5 mins with me.

If leaving on Saturday morning, everything would be the same but shifting the schedule by a day.

I know there are people more organized with everything prepped and ready in advance.

Fundamentally, I don’t think I’m lacking skills to be organized; nor do I need more productivity hacks to achieve more.

My struggle? I pour a lot of energy into what I’m doing. I have a high level of dedication, commitment, and involvement when it comes to my professional life. That often leaves me with little space for other things. There's a limited amount of mental space and energy one can give in a timeframe.

Before you think this is a complain - it’s not - it’s in fact a learning with myself: I have managed to reach a point where I acknowledge how I act, react, perform, and execute and more importantly WHY. 

It's that fear of money I was talking about earlier that drives so many of us to work. 

The fear of not being able to pay the bills; the fear that we could get fired; the fear that we would not perform at the expected level; the fear of not having enough money to live; the fear of starting all over again. 

I’ve learned already that it's us who push things to be madness (because of those fears), it's us who develop a chasing culture based on these fears… but most people usually don't recognize that it's within their own ability to control or at least acknowledge what’s happening, and instead, they get angry with their employer or boss.

Over the years, I’ve learned to become more efficient and recognize a few patterns that would put me in this hectic space and try to proactively avoid it; or think in advance about how I can make my departure from home and work much easier without the extra effort and energy. 

However, I can’t remember the last time I went on a holiday without feeling rushed or drained.

Nor a holiday when it wouldn’t take me about 1 week to disconnect and leave behind as much as I can all the things from home, work, life, family.

But this time was different.

Last Sunday, I boarded a flight to South Africa to attend a friend's wedding. With this chance, we’ve also planned a holiday.

I’m still in my 3-month sabbatical period, which means that this trip didn’t mean to me the ultimate pill for recovery from a long hard period of work; rather, it was pure excitement and joy.

After many years of waiting for the next holiday to get rest and relax, I was excited again to go on a trip and enjoy culture, explore, live.

My luggage was sorted out on time; I’ve left my house tidied up, my husband also had the chance to do a bit of garden work as a relaxation thing before jumping on the flight.

My mood was positive, I felt energized and so excited about the trip.

I had the time to call both my parents and my sister the day of our flight to check on them and have a small talk before losing the luxury of having data all the time to contact them.

I’ve also washed all my laundry so that when we come back, we don’t just pile things up but rather have only the clothes from our trip.

Life had a different dynamic that week.

And life had a different dynamic that week for my husband as well, as having the time and space to look after us as a family and plan everything got him also a bit more relaxed.

Which made me reflect on what I know isn’t going to be a popular opinion: the family life of ambitious people, both with career aspirations and driven, part of working environments that don’t usually allow for much schedule flexibility, can sometimes find life overwhelming. They're often caught between the desires to explore freedom, look after their family and themselves, do chores, and also pour energy into a career. Make $$$ for a good living. Fit into the society. 

And all that when hours per day are limited. 

When most of the time, you get to live most of your life between Saturday and Sunday, or during the 3-4 hours you have at hand during weekday evenings.

The most important thing is that I looked at this holiday as being an experience and not the only chance to get some rest and relax.

It has been the very first time when I've gone into a holiday relaxed and energized.

Time has had a different taste this week.

There's no pressure of getting relaxed asap because otherwise, you’ll miss the chance.

It's a taste of freedom and life that I've gotten to know and taste this week.

Half of our holiday is already gone, but for the first time, I feel that I've been and done so many things already that it almost makes me think that time expanded.

It makes me question multiple aspects of life, especially after spending so much time connected with the wild nature on the safaris. After observing the circles of life.

It makes me question why so many of us are living a life we hope to retire from one day. When we are older.

It makes me reflect on the idea that most of us work for money, for the fear of money… and ultimately that in most big companies, most people are there driven by the idea that they’ll finally make enough to buy a “house on the beach” and be done.

Taking the decision to jump into a 3-month sabbatical has been a hard process with my inner self. It might sound or look light from the outside, might sound very double and easy.

But, just like me, there are many other people who need to work with themselves to even accept and allow their brain to think that taking a 3-month break isn’t going to ruin their careers, or put them in a position of job or financial insecurity, which ultimately would make all those money-fears a reality. 

And after having the experience with myself, after reaching better self-mastery, if you happen to resonate with my stories and thoughts here, all I can say is that it's worth it.

It's worth working hard on yourself to acknowledge your inner fears, understand the reasons why you do things in a certain way, and almost force yourself to overcome them.

You will get to know yourself in an absolutely beautiful way when you allow growth to happen to you.

The taste of life this week has widened my perspectives on what life can taste like. 

It has given me the confirmation that it has been worth pushing my emotions to take this 3-month break regardless of all my fears.

The break itself has been much more needed, but I think it is the personal growth that I was looking to touch and get.

And I feel that this has just been the beginning.

If you are out there, reading this, resonating with me, please work with yourself until the point when you allow yourself to acknowledge your fears and let yourself take small breaks to really discover life from time to time. 

Work and money are absolutelly essential and important. 

But don’t lose yourself, your family, your friends, your connection to nature because you’re busy chasing until you manage to settle on financials and hope to have good “golden years”.

Work hard, but don’t just work for money.

Work with passion and ambition, but don’t let the fear of being let go drive you.

Make sh** lot of money if you want, but don’t pursue money out of fear of not having enough.

Chase if you want, but only if you understand why you’re doing it; and don’t blame others for your work culture. Even in hectic and unhealthy work environments, it’s ultimately your decision to stay, often driven by the fear of starting over somewhere new.

Think about how you can give yourself small breaks throughout your life too. Don’t wait for retirement. 

A too long chase will only make you work out of fear of money or the desire for something.

So much of life is out of control, so better focus on the only thing you can really have control over in this world - yourself. 

Learn to use emotions (especially the fear of financial insecurity that drives us to work hard) to work for you rather than letting emotions make you work for them and therefore work for money. 

Money won’t make you overcome your fears. 

Work with yourself to overcome them to then enjoy money and life. 

This note has been a bit different than my previous ones. And I truly believe that you will resonate with my thinking or thoughts here only if you’ve already started your own journey with yourself, questioning some aspects of your life. Questioning and trying to think why you do things in a certain way. If you don’t resonate with me, I’ve been there, and I really believe you have high chances of coming to similar conclusions at a certain point in your life.

I hope at least my note will inspire you to reflect on your own lives and motivations, personal fulfilment, and your own culture of work and relationship with money.

That’s it for this note, see you next week.

-Luciana