Thankful To Be Thankful

Oh crap, not another crappy-happy-sappy Thanksgiving post.

Stay with me friends; this won’t be too mushy.

It’s been over 5 years since I quit my job and I still haven’t quite adjusted to FI life. I was considering this the other day after cursing out the fingerprint reader on my phone. Fingerprint readers have been pretty much useless to me lately. It’s because I’ve doing a lot of physical labor lately and my fingers are torn up and dried out. A fingerprint scanner will typically work for a week and then I have to reset it. I wear construction gloves when I can, but they get in the way.

But, I’m not complaining. I willingly signed on for these projects.

Fortunately, I also play hard. Last weekend was pretty great. I went to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and saw the Smashing Pumpkins, one of my favorite bands:

The next day, I headed over to the Petersen Automotive Museum to catch the new Tesla exhibit:

Finally, I went to Hermosa Beach which is completely awesome:

Thankful To Be Thankful

When I quit my job, I kept right on working. The work is different, but it still consumes vast quantities of my time. 5+ years later, I haven’t let up. But I’m finally at peace with slowing down.

When I first quit work, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to go to the gym for 3 hours or walk for that same amount of time. It was a luxury I wasn’t comfortable with allowing myself to enjoy. I’m not sure why, but there I was.

But now, I’ve finally calmed down. I have the Project House to finish and then some work to complete on the home I live in. Then, I’ll give the tools a rest. Instead, I’ll work on the podcast, Spanish, and a new website project that I’ve been thinking about for years.

I’m thankful that I own my time. I choose to do what I do and that makes all the difference.

I could get all mushy and tell you that I’m thankful for my family, my friends, and my community. I am, but all of that is pretty boring and well-worn territory. Most of all, I’m thankful that I have so much stuff to be thankful for. Much of it was enabled by FIRE.

If you’ve already FIRE’d, I hope you’re as satisfied with life as I am. If you’re not quite FIRE’d, I hope this post gives you confidence in your plans (just remember to enjoy every day!).

Finally, for those of you who I’ve met in person, thanks for being willing to meet up with an awkward dude who deep down is still a little terrified of other humans. For those of you who I’ve yet to meet, I look forward to seeing you. And everyone, be good to yourself and each other.

Life is great.

More 1500 Days!!!

You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:

Mile High FI podcast:

• Listen on Apple, Google, YouTube, and Spotify

Also here:

• Facebook: Facebook group and page
• YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
• Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
• Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
• Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know.

And one more thing! Here’s a timely comic from my great friend Arik! See his Instagram feed for more of his awesome work!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Arik Peterson Dad Comic (@dads_are)