In 2018, I wrote a document called the "Hawaii Scheme."
It was a masterpiece of engineering. It had everything: net-worth projections, withdrawal rates calculated to the second decimal point, a strategy for "golden handcuffs," and a clear path to Financial Independence (FIRE). I was treating my life like a technical problem—if I could just optimize the variables, I could solve for "happiness."
The plan was simple: move to a lower-cost-of-living area, rent out the house, and buy a lifestyle of simplicity and peace. I thought I was building an escape hatch.
I didn't realize that the house I was trying to escape from wasn't the corporate grind—it was the illusion of control.
Since 2018, my life didn't just change; it collapsed. I lost my wife. I lost my house. I lost the identity I had spent decades constructing. The spreadsheets didn't have a column for "total systemic failure." There was no formula for the void that opens up when the things you used to define yourself disappear overnight.
For a long time, the gap between the "Hawaii Scheme" and my reality felt like a failure. I looked at the ghost of that 2018 version of myself—the one with the spreadsheet-worthy net worth and the clear 2-year plan—and I felt the weight of everything that had been stripped away.
But as I continue to rebuild, I've realized something fundamental about the nature of goals.
We often mistake the means for the end. I thought the goal was "Financial Independence." I thought the goal was "Hawaii." In reality, those were just placeholders for a deeper desire: the desire to feel safe, to feel free, and to feel like I belonged.
The irony is that you cannot truly find that safety in a bank account or a zip code. You can only find it in your own capacity to survive the crash.
Rebuilding is a different process than planning. Planning is about anticipation; rebuilding is about presence. When you lose everything, you are forced to encounter yourself without the armor of your achievements or the safety net of your assets. It is a brutal process, but it is also the only way to build an identity that is actually durable.
I am not "back" to where I was in 2018. I don't want to be. That version of me was optimized for a world that doesn't exist anymore.
Today, my goals are different. They aren't written in spreadsheets. They are about resilience, about the quality of my current breath, and about the slow, honest work of becoming a person who can stand on their own two feet regardless of the "scheme."
Plans are useful, but they are fragile. They are maps of a territory we think we know. The real work happens when the map is torn up and you have to find your way home by the stars.
If you're currently in the middle of a collapse, or if you're staring at a plan that has completely fallen apart: know that the wreckage is where the real building begins. The most stable version of yourself is the one that knows exactly how to survive the loss of everything they thought they needed.