stackingmyexit

Day 177

Hope is a strange word for a FIRE journey.

Most of what I do toward financial independence in Singapore is the opposite of hoping.

- Retirement planning spreadsheets
- A careful withdrawal rate
- Built-in contingencies

But the what-ifs still show up. That quiet money anxiety most of us carry.

Mine sound like this:

What if the market drops right after I stop working?
What if my portfolio has to carry everything perpetually?
What if my number keeps moving while I chase it?

On a trip to Fukuoka, Japan, I stood at Kego Shrine and watched people tie their omikuji to a wooden rack.
The custom is simple:

- Good fortunes go home with you
- Bad fortunes get folded, tied up and left behind
Either way, you read the slip first, because it carries advice too

That last part stuck with me.

Hope doesn't mean ignoring the bad slip. My what-ifs are worth reading. They're why I plan carefully and treat CPF LIFE as a bonus, not something I depend on.

But reading a fear is different from carrying it everywhere.
Psychologists describe hope as two things working together:
Believing you can act

Seeing at least one way forward

That helped me see the difference. Optimism waits for a good draw. Hope asks what I can still do with the one I got.
Some years will hand us a bad slip. The market won't care about our plans.

But we still get to choose what comes home with us, and what stays at the shrine.

What's one what-if you're ready to leave behind?