Do what you are born to do.

Many of us inspired by Robert Kiyosaki’s concept of financial freedom, works hard to build up our passive income. The goal is for our future expenses to be met by the build-up of passive income. A few ways to build passive income includes financial investments, real estate investments, starting a self-run business (and not being in the management side of it). From the side of startups, it means building a scalable business that can generate recurring revenue.

All these activities makes sense. They force us to think about our life from a broader concept as opposed to living our lives as corporate drones who depends on job security to sustain our living. Twenty years from now, I don’t see much hope in job security for anybody above the age of 40. One of the core principles in finance is that of the time value of money. In a nutshell, it means that a dollar saved today is worth more than a dollar you receive ten years from now. The reason is that a dollar saved today can be invested, and thus that dollar will be worth $3 in future. It makes sense logically because instant gratification is always worth more than future gratification for items of the same value.

But there is more to life than money. The time-value concept can also be applied to other intangible areas of your life, which includes happiness, enjoyment and fulfillment. An excessive pursuit of financial freedom in sacrifice of other areas of your life results in an imbalance. Fivecentstencents pointed out that financial freedom is a journey and not a destination. The blog succintly summarizes the point in a single paragraph.

And so it is with financial freedom. Many of us see the end point or the destination of this process of financial freedom as being able to quit our jobs and do what we REALLY want in life instead of our work and business. The absurdity of it all of being in a rat-race is that we trade our time for money and use the money to buy back time, all the while forgetting that it is the experiences we gather through the journey that is life, that is living.

Do what you are born to do. Contrary to popular beliefs, some of us are born to lead. Some are meant to follow. Remember that if you engage in any productive activity and do it well, your efforts will eventually pay-off. you don’t have a guarantee of financial returns, but you guarantee at least that you lived a life worth living.