Personal Context

I’m in my mid 20s and in the upper percentile of income and net worth for my age group. I have $400k+ in assets (from being frugal while living at home and getting lucky investing through the COVID upswing) and earning $150k+ in TC. I have an objectively good job, with reasonably interesting work and amazing work life balance. Of course, I’d rather not be working if I had the choice, since there are aspects of every job that aren’t enjoyable and parts of my life I want to explore. I also have an amazing and supportive partner that I’m so lucky to have. I am so incredibly fortunate to be in this circumstance and know how lucky I am.

Problem

One thing that that I’ve realised lately is how incredibly fixated on finances I am becoming. When I am so fixated on my FIRE number and have spreadsheets for everything, it feels like I’ve started to attach my self worth to my net worth. A lot of the people I surround myself with are successful outliers. I get a bit jealous and maybe have a bit of tall poppy syndrome when talking to the extreme outliers. There are people I know who made it big on risky investments, people who are future surgeons or lawyers on the partner track. These are people that will soon be making $500k-1M or already have $1M+ portfolios. I know that I’m objectively doing well and that people reading this post might be feeling the same way towards me hearing about my circumstances. I sadly have this urge to compare that I want to get rid of.

Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful to be on the FIRE pathway. It’s made me realise what matters vs what is just consumerism. I’ve also noticed that even in this accumulation stage, it’s given me a bunch of freedom. Like I had the freedom to spend money when emergencies happened recently and can spend on experiences as well as the people I care about. I literally don’t have to think twice, because I’ve built myself up financially already for my age.

As someone that really enjoys a simple life and doesn’t care for luxury items, I know that after a certain point money won’t really buy me much more happiness. But how do I stop the emotional hamster wheel of thinking it’s never enough and that I need to have more than the people around me?