Weekend Reflections 9-13-20: Fire, FIRE, and FISE

Weekend Reflections 9-13-20: Fire, FIRE, and FISE

I woke up really early today and the sky was glowing a bright orange. I tried to take a morning jog, but couldn’t. The blanket of smoke that created the orange haze was just too suffocating. It was hard to breathe.

The weather app on my phone confirmed it: “Unhealthy Air Quality”.

They say we don’t really have seasons here in California. But some people half-jokingly say we actually have two– allergy season and fire season. But this is no joke. The fire season has been pretty bad this year, and it seems to be getting even worse every year.

And it’s not just California. In fact, if you look at an interactive map of the wildfires, it looks like the entire Western United States is on fire.

The fires are so bad (especially in Northern California and Oregon) that many people have lost their jobs, homes, and their lives. My heart goes out to those who have had such a devastating loss.

 

FIRE

Almost exactly last year, I wrote about rebranding FIRE to “Financial Independence, Recreational Employment.” Nowadays, that post would be off-putting and totally out of touch.

With so many people out of work, it’s now a privilege to have some form of employment. Recreational employment though? It might not be a status that everybody could attain.

Rebranding FIRE again

I’m ready to rebrand the FIRE acronym yet again.

Of course, the Financial Independence part doesn’t need fixing. Everybody should aspire to be financially independent and experience financial freedom. The RE part can be tinkered with though.

FIRE should be an acronym for Financial Independence, Ready to Escape.

The literal definition of escape is “to break free from confinement or control”. To me, this acronym is very fitting. Financial independence can allow you to escape a lot of negativity in your life whether it be a soul-sucking 9-5 W2 type of job, an unfortunate marital situation, a dangerous place, the seemingly endless rat race of consumption, your current unfulfilling lifestyle, or….whatever.

Don’t get me wrong, financial independence is not a panacea or a cure all. But it can certainly help.

Ready to evacuate

Not only can the RE part stand for “ready to escape”, but an alternative could be “ready to evacuate.”

The definition of evacuate is “to remove from a place of danger to a safer place”. Being financially free can better allow ourselves to go to a safer place physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Due to the fire season, we have to be constantly ready to evacuate. Wildfires can spread very quickly. So we would have to be able to evacuate our home and leave in short notice.

My wife and I have had friends who were already ordered to evacuate. It’s terrifying.

We made a list of things we would take with us if we were ordered to evacuate.

These include:

• Loved ones: daughter and dog (this is obvious, of course)
• Irreplaceable things: hard drive of saved photos and important documents
• Valuables: wedding rings, some jewelry (being frugal we really don’t have too many things that are expensive)
• Important documents: birth certificates, house deed, passports, marriage license, etc. (these can be replaced, but we have these in one safe place so it would be easy to grab and go)
• Essentials: some clothes, some food, money, credit cards, etc.

It’s a good idea to keep a Legacy or I.C.E. binder. It can contain a lot of important information that may need to be accessible in the event of an emergency.

You never know when an emergency or financial crisis will happen. Many people have the hubris of believing “it will never happen to me”. I get it. Thinking about this stuff is heavy and can be a bit morbid. But it’s really important.

The best thing to do is have the proper preparation and be ready for a catastrophic event. Fortunately, there are excellent resources out there that can help. My friend Cory S Fawcett wrote a book on how to prepare for and navigate such crises.

You can check out his book here (link is directly from his site). It’s a fantastic book and one of these days I hope to write a full review of it.

 

FISE

Okay. So I talked about Financial Independence, Ready to Escape (or Ready to Evacuate). But what in the heck is FISE???

FISE stands for Financial Independent, Save the Earth. It was coined by my friend Dr. Plastic Picker, a pediatrician who also works in San Diego.

I wanted to give her a shout out because one of her recent articles was featured on Kevin MD.

Like her, I am also a climate activist who advocates for better environmental protection for the sake of keeping the planet a safe place for our children and future generations to live in.

Climate change

People will say that climate change isn’t a big deal. But in reality, it is. The wildfires in Australia and Brazil a few months ago as well as the fires here in the United States is growing evidence that climate change negatively affects our livelihood now and not just “some time in the future”.

Some people will say that the amount of human contribution to climate change is debatable. Okay. Even if it’s debatable, there is still a large portion of it that we can actually control. We can’t just throw our hands up and say that it’s totally out of our control. It’s not.

Given what’s happening in the world, we should all be compelled to act now.

There are so many things we can do to help fight climate change and improve the health of the planet. Many of these are simple actions that we do every day such as conserving energy, using less plastic, consuming less by being conscious consumers, and eating a more plant-centric diet based on seasonal fruits and vegetables that are locally grown.

 

Final Thoughts

Financial independence and financial freedom is a goal that everyone should aspire to achieve.

It can give you more power to escape an unfulfilled life, evacuate from harms way, or even save the Earth.

FIRE can have different meanings for you and FI can have different purposes. In my view, financial independence should serve the overarching goal of improving your life so that you can better the life of others and the world as a whole.