During the last couple of years, we rat raced in Hong Kong, then fired in France and moved to Dubai. All the events have been life changing experiences and revealing about life. I have broken down the constituents that contribute to a happy and fulfilling life and assessed what was needed to reach these key elements. We undeniably need some money, but we mostly need time. Thanks to a well structured portfolio and extended planning, the financial part is mainly on auto-pilot, leaving us all the time to live a happy and fulfilling life.
Why would I use a Sankey Diagram?
A Sankey diagram is a type of flow diagram that visualizes the flow of data, energy, or material through a system. It uses variously sized and coloured arrows to represent the quantity of the flow and to show the path taken by the flow. It is named after Irish Captain Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey, who used this type of diagram in 1898 showing the energy efficiency of a steam engine. You can read more here in Wikipedia. It is increasingly popular in the FIRE community as a tool to visualize your income and expenses.
I like this diagram because it is highly visual. It provides a clear and concise way to present complex information. Also, it helps users visualize the relationship between components in a system. Finally, it can be used to represent a wide range of data.
There are a few drawbacks. It offers limited detail, which may not be suitable for complex systems. It can be difficult to create and interpret for some users. The interpretation may be subjective due to the varying size and color of arrows or lines.
What is a happy and fulfilling life?
This question has been around since the beginning of time. Everyone has its own definition. But it is important to understand what your pillars are, which will make your life happy and fulfilling. As mentioned in my previous post, The struggle of achieving FIRE in real life, I was recently at a new cross-road in my life. My thoughts were totally entangled. So, I broke it down into key foundations, which were then more detailed into an action plan. And for each of these action plans, I estimated how much time or money was needed.
My key pillars of Life
I could make a long list, but I prefer to keep it simple and short. There are a few that I would not have considered a few years back. But life has told me a few lessons. It is only when you truly miss something that you realize that it is crucial to your life and well-being.
Health: Without health, nothing else matters. When you are sick or with more medical issues, being healthy is your only concern. You can’t enjoy much life until you feel that your health is good.
Family: Our family members are the key persons that we can turn to whenever we face difficulties. They are the rocks that solidify the relationships. It is an ultimate pleasure to be with them. You love them and care for them as much as they do for you.
Friends: You don’t choose your family, but you can decide who could be your friend. They can be your college buddies, neighbours, or member of your club. You share interests and values as well. Otherwise, you would not enjoy spending time with them. We say that you are the median of your best 5 friends. So choose wisely the friends you spend time with.
Financial security: You might realize that the pursuit of money is endless and doesn’t bring more happiness beyond a certain point. The goal of FI is to reach that point where money switches from one of the first decision criteria to one of the last.
Social interaction: During Covid, we all experienced the lack of social interaction for an extended period of time. Indeed, we realized that we needed to interact with people or even feel to be part of a community.
Happiness: We are all seeking it, but we can’t define it. Maybe it is the purpose of life.
Experiences: A life without new experiences would be dull and boring. Life is to be lived lively, not cruised till your last day.
Fulfillment: It is the question and the answer of what you want to achieve in life.
Learning: I have always been eager to learn new things. Don’t we all want to be better or understand the world?
My action plan, and my fuel to achieve it
I have divided each of my life pillars into 3 key actions. It could have been 2 or 4, it doesn’t really matter. The key is about being consistent. I also attributed a weight for each of these actions. The idea is to have a gauge about how much each action is contributing to your happy life.
Then, I split each action by the fuel (Time or Money) needed to achieve an action. For example, eating a healthy diet requires some money and some time. If you have a very busy schedule, you can still enjoy a healthy meal but you will have to pay the price. However, if you have the time to cook yourself, a balanced diet will not cost you much. Some activities require significant money like travels and experiences. On the contrary, it can cost you near zero to read books. The weights are totally subjective and mine. Nevertheless, they represent the importance I set for all of them.
You can see that my vision of life needs much more time than money. This visualization tool has been instrumental to help me make the right decision recently about a long-term commitment. Of course, I could have made some trade-offs on some for a short period of time. It would have brought me new experiences and new learnings, but at a cost of my time, which was too significant. And it would not have brought me closer to my life goals, nor would I make me happy. Honestly, my healthy and active days are mostly behind me now. So I’d rather focused on making most of them now, that having more money later on, but being incapable to achieve.
But your life might or should be totally different. Everyone has their own experience, background, aspirations, and interests. Don’t copy/paste other people’s lives to yours. You should know better than anyone else what you are seeking in life. Or maybe with the exception of your true friends and close family members.
If you have enjoyed this post, you can build your own diagram using the following website https://sankeymatic.com/build/. I have attached below the file that I used to create the Sankey diagram. You can reuse it as a base or start from scratch if you prefer.
What makes sparks in your life? Please share the pillars of your life and your lightbulb moments. I wish you to find your path for a happy and fulfilling life!