As I sit in my basement in the wee morning hours, I sit and ponder, how did I get to a place where I have an absolutely wonderful wife, two beautiful little boys, a nice house and a practice that I love and have confidence in. As those close to me know, I have a hard time shutting my mind down and winding down enough to relax, so I sit and think about this stuff.

While it is a little redundant, I do think it helps to sit down every once in a while and take inventory of your life to evaluate where you are at, where you have been and where you hope to be in the coming years.  While I cannot complain about where I am at in my life, there are certainly things that I will change as the years go on and there are definitely things that I would have changed along the way.  But every choice has a consequence, good or bad, you have to live with it, mine haven’t been so bad.

I have a new found love and respect for the FIRE movement, it’s a financial movement where people want to become financially independent and retire early.  While I can’t say that I want to retire early, as I truly do love what I do and operating a business is kind of a rush and thrill to me. But the intriguing part is to become financially independent.  I say this as I just went more in to debt to purchase another building to work out of but I think long term I will be much happier and saner.

The point of the FIRE movement and this post overall is to see what exactly people mean by success.  For some people within the movement living in a camper, traveling the country, living on next to nothing and seeing the sunrise in a different place every day is their definition of success.  If you ask me, this would be a nightmare for me; I am a home body that loves routine.  Ask my mother-in-law, my quirkiness translates into my oldest son and she can see the tendencies coming out.

Everyone’s definition of success will look a little different, there are people that find contentment in minimalism and not having a care in the world.  I actually find comfort in having a little something but having control over what I do on a day to day basis.  Getting to work at an hour that I am comfortable with and leaving when the day is done is refreshing for, I don’t have to punch the clock and work for the man.  While I do become envious of that lifestyle every once in a while because you are able to just leave everything behind at work and go on with your life.  When you own a business, everything kind of revolves around that.  If I’m sick or want a vacation, there is no PTO or benefits, you just don’t make any money.

Chiropractors are no different than anyone else.  Some want to work 2-3 days a week, see a few patients, have a few nice things, do what they want to do and are perfectly happy with this set up.  Me on the other hand, I don’t know if I get this from my parents or not, but I consider myself a grinder.  I enjoy going into the office, working 4-5 days a week, staying busy throughout the day and getting up and doing this day after day.  I would drive my wife crazy if I were home all the time, I don’t really having any hobbies, I like to work and golf and now 2 little boys are going to start taking over my life as well.

While I would like to think that I am at a really good place in my life and I would like to think that my success makes me happy and thankful.  I also step back to think that the things that I have would make some people miserable, either good or bad.  I’m just going to sit back on a long Thanksgiving weekend and be thankful for my family’s blessings and health, as I know millions of people around the country are not as fortunate as the Spracklin’s this year.