Most of us have gone down the rabbit hole of reading comments on social media. You start on one post and twenty minutes later you’re 37 comments deep in a discussion between two strangers. That’s exactly how I stumbled across the Choose FI community, not by searching for financial advice or early retirement, but by following a thread in a friend’s comment section that led me somewhere I didn’t expect. What I found was more than just an online financial community. It was also a way to meet like-minded people in my own city.

Technology has the ability to make us more connected and less connected at the same time. Although we have more methods of connecting with people than at any point in human history, more people today are reporting loneliness than ever before. According to a 2023 Meta-Gallup survey of more than 140 countries, nearly one in four people feel either very or fairly lonely. The natural instinct is to blame the technology itself, But what if the technology isn’t the problem? What if it’s how we choose to use it?

While reading comments on a friend’s social media post I came across a recommendation from someone I know to ‘check out Choose FI’. Having never heard of Choose FI, I sent them a text asking what they were talking about. They briefly mentioned a podcast centered around early retirement, which sounded intriguing, so I did some further investigating. Who isn’t at least curious about the idea of retiring early?

What I found was a large, active online community of people pursuing financial independence together, sharing strategies, asking questions, and celebrating each other’s successes without judgment. Within this large online community were numerous local groups, meeting in cities and towns across the country and the world. This seemed like a great model because, although many financial strategies are universal, personal finance is, well, personal.

I found that my city had an established local group, but it had been mostly inactive, with little real interaction among members. So I decided it wouldn’t hurt to see if there was any interest in becoming more active.

I started organizing meetups. I posted them on the local Choose FI social media page and eventually on the Choose FI website. What happened was something I didn’t fully anticipate. People showed up: real people, not screen names, with the same mindset around money, freedom, and intentional living that I had. After six meetups over roughly six months, each gathering brought anywhere from 3 to 12 people, and every single one included at least one new face who had never attended before. People were interested in connecting with others in their own city who shared their mindset around financial independence. They just needed a nudge to get there.

These are people I almost certainly would never have crossed paths with otherwise. Our lives don’t intersect naturally. We don’t work together, live around the corner from each other, or move in the same social circles. The only reason we found each other was because a comment on a friend’s social media post created a thread that I chose to follow.

That’s the distinction that most conversations about technology miss. Technology is a tool. On its own it is neither positive nor negative. The problem isn’t the tool — it’s the posture. Most people approach social media as a passive experience. They consume the infinite scroll, they react, and repeat. A different posture that is active, intentional, and uses the same tool to find real connection, can lead you to a real community and real people who share your values and your goals.

Technology didn’t replace my community. It helped me find and expand it.

Three questions worth sitting with this week:

🌍  Community worth exploring

ChooseFI — the community where this story started. Local groups, a podcast, and thousands of people working toward financial independence together. Worth exploring whether or not FIRE is your goal — the mindset is the point.

📚  Read

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam — the landmark book on America’s declining social capital. Published in 2000 but more relevant now than ever. Putnam argues that the erosion of community is one of the most serious public health and civic crises of our time. The Choose FI meetup story is a small but real counter-example to his thesis — and proof that the tools to rebuild community already exist.

📊  Stat worth sharing

A 2023 Meta-Gallup survey of more than 140 countries found that nearly one in four people worldwide — more than a billion people — feel very or fairly lonely. Loneliness has been declared a public health epidemic by the U.S. Surgeon General. The tools to address it already exist in our pockets. The question is whether we use them intentionally.

Zoom out. See what’s possible.

— Chuck

SOURCES

Loneliness epidemic — Meta-Gallup survey 2023: brainmindsociety.org
U.S. Surgeon General loneliness advisory: hhs.gov
Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam: amazon.com