My friend Jennifer Villeneuve and I guest-wrote a blog post for Chip Conley’s Wisdom Well, called “Is women’s soul work different than men’s?” You can find it here. In it, I quote Sara Avant Stover, who wrote in The Book of SHE: Your Heroine’s Journey into the Heart of Feminine Power:
“In reality, our lives as women cannot be represented by a straight line. Rather, our journeys take us through a series of circular initiations. Each crisis that lowers us into the dark underworld calls us to listen to and trust ourselves in ever-deepening ways. We have been led to believe that partnering with our darkness will make us crazy, but the truth is that only denying our darkness can do that.”
I continue by writing, “Letting go of the single narrative that a ‘good life’ is a long rising ascent followed by a gentle voluntary descent allows for more individuality, diversity, and freedom in our life journeys.” It got me thinking about lesson 2.9 in FF1, where we talk about Paula Pant’s idea of mini- and semi-retirements that punctuate a longer career, as opposed to a sprint to crossover into FIRE.
I’ve always been an advocate of working straight through, because as Charlie Munger said, “The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” Semi- or mini-retirements mean that compound interest never works for you; you have to keep replenishing your nest egg with your own life energy. But I’m curious if women don’t find the sprint to FIRE appealing. Keep in mind: my own 20-year FIRE journey was punctuated by at least 4 years of voluntary and involuntary unemployment. As those of you who took FF2 know, that’s part of why I think going as fast as you can is better: you want to outrun your need to work before capitalism outruns its need for your labor.
The other interesting piece of the blog is Jennifer’s two developmental pathways: the masculine voice focusing on independence (“separation”) and responsibility for oneself, and the feminine voice emphasizing interdependence (“connection”) and responsibility to others. This has been a core sticking point for many students: FIRE seems to be a solo journey that disregards the community. Jennifer’s point is that we may go through the same stages, but in a different order and purpose. The blog post goes deeper into our thoughts so again, I hope you read it with Financial Freedom in mind. Our paths might go in different orders, but that miracle of compound interest thing always favors the early bird.