I am a pretty frequent lurker here but don't really have anything important to post financially so I don't really.

There is a blog that I heard about here called "earlyretirementextreme" that I also frequent regularly. The guy who writes it is so refreshing and intelligent.

Anyway, in one of his many thought-provoking posts he points out that most of us have a decision to make during our lives. Now I don't think many people ACTUALLY think seriously about this and make an independent decision - I think most people just go with the flow.

The decision is: Money or Heartbeats ?

To use my own situation as an example. I'm debt-free since earlier this year. I save money every month - a good percentage of my take-home pay with I'm happy with. Every month my Net Worth creeps up slowly but steadily. Fine.

However I have to work in a job (and I know I'm lucky to have a job at all) that is slowly, discreetly and insiduously sucking the life out of me. It tries to shrink my world-view to just that company and the crap that goes inside it.

Which is more important ? Meeting savings targets or making the most of every single heartbeat I have. Heartbeats are limited. I only have a fixed allocation of them. And I'm not obsessed with being a millionaire or anything. But I do want to feel alive... jumping out of an airplane alive... to feel that I lived the best life I could.

At the moment, I feel like I'm not on the same planet as living the best life I could ... but at the same time, every month I'm adding a good amount to my Financial Assets through this nice comfortable soul-destroying job.

Although I have been distancing myself from my sense of self and not taking things personally/seriously at work so that helps.

But I just feel like I'm exchanging TOO many heartbeats for the euros I'm accumulating.

Sorry if I seem whiney and self-centred. Maybe I am just that and neep to cop myself on !!! :-)