It seems that most of the world judges wealth by money. And there is no better way to show your money than with status symbols. Objects like a big house, luxury cars, a yacht, hired help, large properties, exotic holidays and expensive clothes are status symbols that are supposed to convey wealth, power and happiness. It seems that we humans are quite similar to peacocks and their tendency to display the colours of their feathers.

Although I am aggressively building my wealth, it is not about money. No, I am actually building my wealth so that I can have access to a status symbol that is much better than the biggest mansion, the longest yacht or the most colourful feathers. I am chasing the ultimate status symbol: Freedom, more specifically financial freedom, geographical freedom and temporal freedom.

We are all aware of the unique relationship between time and money. Money is time and time is money. But time is much more than money, people. Time is everything. Without time, you have nothing. Time is life and life is time. Without one, you lose the other. And day by day we lose a little bit of both because we're all slowly getting older. So I'm trying to build up as much money as I can so I can have as much time as I can. And I plan to cash it all in for the ultimate status symbol called freedom.

So what have I done up to this point of this article on financial independence? 

I have spent this free time focusing on what brings me great joy. My personal passions are first and foremost: investing, writing, fitness and spending time with people I care about. 

So, in short, I poured my heart out in my writing, as you can see from this article. Basically, it allowed me to live my life on my own terms.

And it has felt wonderful so far!

With freedom, we can actually live our lives the way it suits us. And it's hard to do that when we spend countless hours a week getting ready for work, driving to work, spending time at work, coming home, relaxing after a long day and then finally settling down to what we actually want to do. Doesn't it sound strange that it's only after more than 10 hours on our feet that we just want to get started?

Now that I see what freedom is, my questions are answered. I love it and I want as much of it as possible!

While traditional status symbols like a nice house and a hot sports car in the driveway seem nice, the truth shining out of hiding reveals that these objects require a lot of work, not only to buy them, but also to pay for ongoing costs like maintenance and repairs. How can you enjoy that big house if you have to constantly work on it to pay it off? Status symbols mean nothing if you can't really enjoy them.

But that's the great thing about freedom. You can enjoy it, because freedom is time. And time is life. With freedom, you can chase your dreams, passions, goals and aspirations.

Do you enjoy painting? Freedom allows you to paint your heart out. While it seems difficult to pour your heart onto the canvas when you are busy working all the time, freedom frees up the time needed to bring colour into your life.

You want to travel? It should be natural to travel somewhere and work from there via the internet. And although travelling is not cheap, travelling does not mean 5-star resorts and first-class airfares either. Freedom can be as cheap or as expensive as you like. I like to write and writing is free, but travelling is not. The latter expression of freedom simply requires everyone a larger source of income to sustain it.

But it doesn't matter what your passions are in life if you don't really enjoy them. You can talk about how much you love flying model planes, for example. But if you haven't flown once in the last two years because you've been constantly busy paying the bills that have piled up, that's not a passion at all. At this point you had better hope that paying bills is not a pain in the ass for you, but a passion, because that is what you would be doing all the time.

But paying bills is not a passion for me. And I hope not for you either.

Freedom can be achieved. It only requires a plan of action.

And this action plan is no more dependent on a university degree than a university degree is dependent on freedom.

In other words, anyone - regardless of a higher education degree - can create an action plan and no specific degree is required to obtain freedom. 

If I had realised this at a young age, I could have started enjoying the freedom I have now much earlier.

At the time, I made the mistake of thinking that studying was the solution and wasted many years studying. But what the years of cramming and my bachelor's degree finally brought me was only the student loan debt and a normal job with a normal salary, which I couldn't really do much with in my life, except saving for the next 40 years of my life for a normal house and slaving away for 8 hours every day for the rest of my life in order to realize the dreams of my boss.

And that is exactly the path that the majority of university graduates take in life if they choose a high degree. After all, it is the fewest who are chosen by the best-paying top companies to earn over €100,000 per year for a 60-hour week. But you shouldn't be impressed by this amount right away, because taxes are deducted from it, so that in the end - apart from the lack of time for yourself - you have just a little more than half of the amount left.

But I already mentioned at the beginning that time is more than money. Because without time you have nothing. Because time is freedom and life. And without time for yourself, you hardly have time for your own mental and physical health. 

I don't want to know how long you can really stay healthy in a job with a 40 to 60 hour week. Certainly not for long. And without health, the measly money from the best-paying companies won't bring you much in the later years of your life.

My tip: Try to make an action plan to live as frugally as possible and work as disciplined as possible on your business alongside your main job. I also recommend using the savings you generate to build your business and expand your know-how. Because these are your assets that will increase in value over time and will one day cover all your living expenses, so that your passive income will exceed your living expenses and you can say goodbye to your boss. 

And what about you? Do you also believe that freedom is the ultimate status symbol?

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