Topic: What is your biggest obstacle to achieving financial freedom ? - page 15. (Read 4163 times)

Yeah, I doubt that many countries are looking for a way to legalize Bitcoin in their respective countries. If they were, they would have done so already. I would also like to think that the government of most countries genuinely care about the poorer people of their country and would want to make their lives better but I don’t think so.
There are few countries that are making the move to legalize bitcoin as most governments are out to criminalize its use.

Well, I guess it is almost impossible to achieve financial freedom combined with moral, ethical, social etc, overall freedom because fundamentally they are on different levels and require absolutly different mentalities. A person who received very little education might become super rich in my parents' generation and he or she would not necessarily self-educate to be morally powerful or influential to the people around. Basic instinct to survive is their biggest motivation even though they have acquired significant wealth. For those who are morally right or influential, if I can say this, often times in reality they are not rich people with enough resources to help others. I am not against any idea of combining the two motivative factors/goals and generating a positive outcome and actual I completely support you or this idea. The thing that concerns me is that I am always realistic and trying to see issues from an objective perspective.

No need to thank me actually

It is totally ok to use placeholder scenarios in order to describe personal experiences and keep privacy. Nothing wrong with that.

I believe at a certain age we all have gone through more or less the same set of issues, negative and positive.

Your example is interesting because as you described it, your father got financially independent and then became somewhat lethargic? Not that he became dependent on anyone, but slowed down on being active and full of energy? This is just an assumption and by no means an insult. For as long as he meets his responsibilities, I guess it his your father's choice how to go about life.

Again, if he can take of himself and of those he took responsibility for, there is nothing wrong about his lifestyle unless he foregoes opportunities and desires that pleased him even more would he have pursued them. That is something only someone really close to him can judge. Someone like a son, but maybe someone else.

Financial freedom as the only goal can also and probably necessarily will be narrowing down your scope of life purposes. There is a difference between:

I want to become rich...
so I need to get educated > get a good job or become an entrepreneur > be successful, period.

or

I want to help as many people as I can (or a specific cause or group of people)...
so I need to become rich > etc. > etc.

I think that too many people thrive for just becoming rich. And then what does rich even mean? I think defining an open end goal or a certain vision can make a whole lot of sense, but only when you are eager to apply realistic expectations and conditions. Sure, I could say I want to save the world from hunger. But that's not realistic. Setting a realistic goal that is beyond money itself is a good way to define a direction in life you are thriving towards.

A goal could be: I want to save people from hunger, instead of saving the world from hunger. So you got to earn some money in order to have spare resources that are then available to attain your goal. At first, just a few people. That motivates you and you understand that there is more potential inside you in order to quantitatively expand your initial idea of "saving people from hunger".

Financial freedom can be to just call it a day, and that is not a bad thing because people might have their individual reasons and experiences. There is nothing bad about someone who took care of themselves and decides to call it a day.

There is also so much morality involved. When there is someone in front of you that you know is able to outcompete the smartest people in the world, but that person doesn't want to, yet is not dependent on anyone, should we push that person to take responsibility and turn the world into a better place? Difficult to answer.

So one of the biggest obstacles to achieving financial freedom is to consider whether financial freedom eventually goes hand in hand with moral, ethical, social , etc., overall freedom.

If you live in a place where being rich is a dangerous thing, financial freedom perhaps doesn't even exist depending on how you define it.

Everyone's dream is to quickly get out of economic difficulties into the comfort zone, many people are busy making money until old age and when they are successful then the things they like, for example food, hobbies, travel and others cannot be done because of a weak old physique, and in life sometimes we have to think realistically that happiness is not always measured by money.

I think, many countries are looking for way to legalize Bitcoin in their land so that this inflation affecting citizens financial freedom will be eliminate from their various countries, so that many people will start doing well in their businesses. I believe, my country will definitely be part of this move by making Bitcoin a legal tender in the country which is the desired of the people right now, so that they will be able to fight this obstacle not allow the people to achieve financial freedom in the country. The high price of commodities is another obstacle that is not making people to progress in the land, because the farmers are finding it difficult to get a financial help from the government.

Wow, I am so impressed by your thorough thinking on our discussion. Although we have not talked that deep and might have disagreements, I thank you very much for speaking your mind and inspiring others to think. In regard to the financial freedom, I actually agree with you and can also share an example here. Well, the example is part of my privacy so I try to be not that specific. Please understand. My father has been comfortably retired for many years but he is not that old. He was a business owner and made a lot of money decades ago. Even to this day, he does not need to do anything for a living and all his passive income from deposit interests, reatal etc can cover all his expenses. He is a typical person who achieves finanical freedom. However, most relatives in my extended family, let alone his friends,do not get along with him or vice versa. Why ? His doing nothing every day is quite an envy to the people around him. Some of them may have a good heart, such as one of my uncles, he often says to me that please don't make too much money, especially when you are young. Being like your father achieving financial freedom is not pleasant in many cases. I won't say I agree or disagree because that really depends but he actually made a good point, just as you said, wealth is a major factor that influences one's social relationships. I tend to focus on my own life and not care much about other's opnions. Having a low-profile and comfortable life is much more important than the so-called fame and face.

One of the things that hinders or slows down my progress is on the current expenses which do bloats out every year by year where it becomes even more bigger as my family getting bigger + having the inflation
that we are experiencing which it do really slows up the progress and able to stall up your plans and goals.It is really that something frustrating if i do mind that what if i havent need to spend up my coins?
For sure im already that rich by now but since there are really lots of priorities which you do need to patch up then you would really be needing to spend on but well
thats whats life for on where you are earning for something you do need to survive and raise up your family.

Things are certainly getting hard in most parts of the world. With inflation on the rise in most parts of the world, costs of goods and the standard of living has skyrocketed. While they’re people who despite the levels of inflation are still making their way to riches, that number is considerably low. The only set of people who despite being in a recession get even richer are the top management staff of either big pharmaceutical companies or oil companies. Those companies make insane profits yearly and their top executives wouldn’t feel inflation even if it was ringing on their doorbell.

Interesting discussion and good points from both of you!

This is a topic on its own, but @Marcellin9 it seems as if you had to make some bad experiences that had a major influence on your general thought process. Sympathetic people win when the environment is fair and sound, well, that also depends on the time horizon. I believe being an asshole can in most cases be at best a short-term strategy only and also, a single asshole doesn't make a good environment a bad environment. You can still face an asshole and think your environment is bad in that very moment, but perhaps your perception is biased right then.

If you take the prisoners' dilemma and you are the one not betraying your friend and therefore sitting in jail for 10 years, you do lose those 10 years and people will notice because obviously the other person being in freedom took advantage of you. The person taking advantage of you will have a hard time getting along in life because everybody knows what happened. The person isn't trustworthy. But once you get to rise from the ashes again, everyone will heap praise on you and trust you like nobody else. An endless number of opportunities might occur for you in the long run after you suffered relatively hard in the short run.

Both of you guys are right though and I did like your points, but it is too complex to discuss within a couple of messages off-topic

Regarding financial freedom in specific, envy is definitely of major importance when it comes to so called "friends". I believe that having a friend who is truly happy from the deepest of their heart for someone else's financial freedom rarely happens. Too many unexpected events can change perspectives of those friends and what I have seen quite often is that with one's own financial freedom often increase the expectations of people around you, especially from those who are less financially free. In other words, financial freedom is a very specific aspect of the whole spectrum of freedom is not automatically to be extended to overall freedom. Some prefer to even hide wealth because they know it might negatively influence some of their social relationships.

I guess you misunderstood my point. Being an asshole, wether it's in its real meaning or just an metaphor, is used against those people who are scumbags that don't play by the rules. You'll never win when dealing with those people if you still play decently. I am talking about the real world surviving, not at a fair competition situation. The "sympathetic and helpful people" are only rewarded when the enviroment is fair and sound. Otherwise they are more likely to be used or exploited.

Those people that are curious with inflation, they're the ones that are finding ways of combatting it. And the truth is, there are people that don't know what even is an inflation is.
And that's the sad part, many people from different nations are still far from that idea of having the majority to have an idea on what's happening with each economies that we're living in and that's one obstacle for an individual to achieve financial freedom, being lack of financial knowledge.

The greatest limitation to how much wealth an individual might be able to archive or command to himself is based on the knowledge, level of information that individual commands and his ability to convert. What a man thinks is eventually what you are able to bring to your reality but, the know how is where most of the difference lies. If your not able to profound a solution to a situation in your head or perhaps be able to get others do it for you, your likely going to have stagnated growth or no growth at all or even decline from your level of financial growth.

We've developed languages and media's to serve a means through which, we can pass knowledge from persons to persons. Seeking just the right kind or being aware of its existence has been the limiting factor for most and would continue to be.

Not being able to be spend money wisely and not being able to take care of your finances wisely is one of my reasons
I think one makes so many mistakes in life - one of them is the financial mistakes.

Things are generally hard in most part of the world recently as inflation keep increasing but some people are still making their way to riches despite the inflation. If one studies his/her environment well, he/she can see something one can invest in and people can't do without.

Blaming mortgages and loans is a bit of an overgeneralization I think. The bigger problem is that overall possession of property is quite centralized and hence the pricing might be skewed. A good example for that is the rent or buy situation. Usually there used to be times when one was smarter than the other, but when you consider the prices of today, you probably come to the conclusion that both renting and buying sucks. There are huge institutional investors buying up real estate all over the place, selling it when prices explode during low interest rate cycles or they rent it out at sky high prices. They have the liquidity to buy when the retail people default on their loan.

A high degree of wealth centralization often comes with price manipulation. That doesn't even have to be the obvious way in the form of building cartels. It could also be that consortia of large institutional investors influence policy makers through lobbying or even bribing.

Then there is definitely all the reasons that concern ourselves. Fear, uncertainty, doubt, lethargy, responsibility (like family) that keeps us from taking risks. There could also be fade like being physically or mentally limited regarding one's health condition.

The biggest obstacle we all face is ourselves, we always make excuses, blame everything around us when we fail. Inflation and crises are making most people miserable because they have to spend more, making money becomes extremely difficult. But besides there are people who are making a lot of money from the crisis from inflation, not everyone is having the same difficulty. Sometimes other people's difficulties are our own opportunities, whether we find them or grasp them or not is up to us.

I think you’ve got a point there. Being part of the present Fiat financial system is an obvious setback to being financially independent and free. The present system is designed to keep the gap between the rich and the poor even wider. It favors the rich and wealthy.

There are folks that spend half their lifetime paying off mortgage and/or debt payments. I also think credit payments given by banks also encourage people to purchase things and pay later. That also would help encourage loan taking and more debts.

Everyone has their own problems that hinder them from gaining financial freedom. Financial freedom is inseparable from having passive income. And to make us have Passive income, it certainly takes hard work and skill. discipline in time and work. and also have good financial management. and of course luck is also needed. Having passive income means that we have a source of income that we no longer need to manage because we have trusted people to manage our business. or it could also be from an investment that provides long-term benefits. But yeah, to achieve all of this at this time will not be easy. Obstacles for now are inflation and the prolonged economic crisis. it's really not easy for us to be able to build passive income at a time like now.

I'll keep it simple - saying yes to new things (going out of your comfort zone), and making good decisions sprinkled with a bit of luck (right timing, right place).

The biggest obstacle to financial freedom is being part of the FIAT financial system. The
system is designed to make it easy to become dependent, for example Mortgages and loans.
Once you avail of their products you become enslaved, 25 or 30 year mortgage, to be completed
when you retire, loans for items we cannot afford and/or dont need and which will need
updating with newer products with newer loans.