The Frequency Illusion is when a particular word, idea or number seems to keep recurring in your life. I’m sure it’s happened to you before. Imagine you make a new acquaintance with an obscure name (Marmaduke for example) and despite never having met a Marmaduke before, in the following week you come across three or four other Marmadukes – they are on TV, on the Radio, your niece names her goldfish Marmaduke, you go past a cafe named Marmeduke’s. You can’t get away from Marmaduke.
This week I’ve been experiencing Frequency Illusion in relation to lobsters. I have no particular interest in lobsters. I think I’ve eaten lobster a grand total of once. But this week I can’t get away from them.
It began at the start of the week when I read an unusually compelling article entitled Consider The Lobster by David Foster Wallace. You may have read it before – it’s won awards. It has nothing to do with personal finance. It is, as the name suggests, about lobsters. Since reading it I’ve been seeing lobsters everywhere. I listened to a narrative-style podcast in which Millenial Revolution’s FIRECracker uses lobsters as recurring example of a luxury she enjoys spending money on. A rerun of Friends showed the episode where Phoebe talks about lobsters mating for life (“She’s your lobster!”). I notice that this month Converse and I are on the verge of reaching our $100,000 investment portfolio goal which I recorded in my diary ages ago should be celebrated with steak… and lobster.
Frequency Illusion suggests that I’m not really being surrounded by all things lobster any more than usual. I’m just noticing it more because of the article I read. Consider The Lobster has really stayed with me.
The article isn’t about finances at all. It starts seemingly as a piece of travel writing, describing the Maine Lobster Festival, but, like a slowly boiling lobster, the article gradually heats up into a discussion of morals, encouraging the reader to question if there really is an ethical way to eat a meal which typically involves boiling a struggling creature to death. The part of the article that really stayed with me is in the second to last paragraph, which in a philosophical turn, deals with the idea that because people like eating lobster, they aren’t willing to think about if it’s the right thing to do:
“Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands … what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it?” Consider the Lobster: 2000s Archive : gourmet.com
The article concludes that many people will refuse to ‘consider the lobster’ because it’s uncomfortable for them to do so. They are reluctant to think about it. They don’t want to risk being faced with the unpleasant reality that their immediate enjoyment comes at an unacceptable cost.
And that, Dear Reader, is what lobsters have in common with personal finances.
Though Converse and I are in the early stages of our FIRE journey, we feel like we are making good headway. I feel a bit like we’ve struck upon a secret key to early retirement and I want to shout it from the roof tops. We’ve both tentatively tried to share this good news with other people we work with. We’ve gently explained our goal to save at least 50% of our earnings. We’ve tried to explain, with as little condescension and judgment as possible why it might be a good idea for other people to reduce their spending and increase their savings. Sadly, though some are politely interested, most are openly dismissive.
Despite our colleagues earning the same high salaries as us we can see massive differences in our lifestyles. It’s not that we don’t enjoy the finer (and more expensive) things in life; it’s that we enjoy them in moderation. When we explain that we don’t plan to take any staycations this year, or we won’t be going to that new bar where a soda costs $10 USD, or we won’t be attending a birthday party on a catered yacht for $125 USD per person – these are all actual conversations which have taken place in the last month – we are met with a range of negative reactions including, pity, confusion and sometimes scorn and derision. It’s sad that we are missing out on staycations. It’s confusing that we can’t afford to go to an expensive bar – surely we get paid enough? It’s ridiculous that we are so stingy that we are depriving ourselves of a day on a yacht.
The reason we are entirely comfortable declining these experiences is that we’ve considered it and come to the conclusion that the immediate enjoyment of these luxuries comes at the unacceptable cost of financial insecurity. This wasn’t easy or instantaneous. It wasn’t a quick decision and at times we’ve faced some uncomfortable truths about ourselves and our spending. It’s not easy to admit to yourself how manipulated you’ve been by the ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ mentality, or how often you’ve used spending to compensate for laziness or a lack of motivation. But having done so, we now feel much better about our choices. I’m not suggesting every choice we’ve made is going to turn out to be the best decision, but at least we can say they were choices made with intentionality. We are now being thoughtful and intentional in our personal finances. Maybe we are still making mistakes, in fact, I’m sure we are, but at least in the future, when we look back at what we got wrong, we’ll know the right intentions were there.
Although at times it was uncomfortable, we’ve considered our personal finances, something which we’ve discovered many people are reluctant to do. We’d like to encourage the people we care about to do the same, and maybe in time we will. Perhaps when we’ve been at this FIRE thing a bit longer and have more tangible evidence of how it’s working for us we’ll be able to put forward a more convincing argument for considering your own personal finances.
Although I’m not sure where I stand on the ethics of eating lobster, as I mentioned it’s not something I’ve ever really eaten, so committing to not eat lobster in the future is no sacrifice. Personal finance however, is something which affects all of us everyday, whether we choose to think about it or not. I hope that in the future I continue to be as intentional and honest with myself about my personal finances as I have been recently. One thing I am sure of is that as Converse and I reach our $100,000 investment milestone, we may be celebrating with steak, but we will certainly not be having lobster.