Wandering the Path to Financial Independence as an Occupational Therapist
The longer I wander down the path to financial independence, the more I find people from various different professions. Many of which are in tech or software development, accounting or finance, or are lawyers, doctors, or physicians. I’ve even found a bunch of physical therapists who are pursuing FI.
But to be honest, I do not come across many people who share the same profession as me. Let’s just say that this journey has been a little lonely on the OT front.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love learning from people who have different jobs and I get a lot of value hearing their different viewpoints, but there is something to be said about sharing in this journey with people who understand what I do for a living.
Being that I’ve never worked in corporate America or even seen the inside of a cubicle, honestly a lot of the negative aspects of jobs that FIRE people talk about I’ve never had to deal with. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things about my job that I don’t like, but it does make this whole “retire early” thing a little more complicated.
Inspiration for This Post
If you’ve been reading my posts recently, you’ll realize that I’ve been finding a lot of inspiration from my readers. This post is no different.
Over the past few months, I have been fortunate enough to meet up with a few occupational therapists who are also pursuing financial independence. It’s still not many, I mean I think I can count them all on one hand, but our conversations have been awesome and its been extremely refreshing to chat with them in real life. Needless to say, it was these conversations that inspired me to write this post.
3 of these feet are OT feet :o)
The Definition of Occupational Therapy
For those of you who are unfamiliar with occupational therapy, I’m going to take a step back for a second and explain a little bit about our profession.
In today’s society, most often “occupation” is defined by a full-time job. It’s even the first definition in the dictionary.
But really, the second definition is a more accurate definition of occupation.
Basically, an occupation is defined as anything that a person does with their time.
Sure, this could mean a job since many people spend the bulk of their time at work, but it could also be a hobby like running, brewing beer, scuba diving, blogging or raising butterflies.
We’ve got about 10-12 of these hanging around our yard right now.
Additionally, it includes our activities of daily living (ADLs) like brushing our teeth, bathing, getting dressed, preparing and eating food, and sleeping.
Take a Minute to Think About All You’ve Done Today
If you are reading this first thing in the morning, you may have had only a few occupations so far. However, if you are reading this at the end of your day, you’ve probably completed quite a few.
Feel free to take as much time as you need. I’ll wait….
I, for example, woke up to my alarm (at 5:30am thanks to my friend 5am Joel who inspired me to start waking up earlier), turned off my alarm, got out of bed, got dressed, walked to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, then walked into my office, sat down at my desk, and began writing this post. Its barely 6am and I have already done many things with my time. I’ve also utilized many skills in order to accomplish those tasks.
Now, I want you to picture yourself (or maybe some of you have already experienced something like this) following an injury. Let’s say you fell, broke your hip, and just had hip replacement surgery. The simple act of getting out of bed or putting on clothes might be rather complicated now with all the hip precautions, let alone any pain, swelling, and discomfort that you might be experiencing.
Or what if you were in a car accident and experienced a traumatic brain injury. Just remembering what you need to do in order to function during the day might be tough.
Remember Mr. Wow’s accident? That night, he couldn’t remember anything within seconds of having the thought. He would think of something that he wanted to do, walk over to what it was, but by the time he got there, he would have completely forgotten what he was attempting to do in the first place. He’d pause, try to remember, and then move on to another thought, but would forget that one before accomplishing it either. It was hard to watch.
Now consider having a degenerative disorder like Parkinsons, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, dementia, or Huntintons. Or maybe you experienced a hand injury or some sort of repetitive action injury like carpal tunnel. Imagine completing those same tasks that you’ve done today now with incessant pain, range of motion limitations, numbness, or complete inability to move your arm or leg or body the way that you want to. Even doing little things becomes a big deal.
But Mrs. Wow I thought you worked with children. Children don’t have jobs, so what do you do with them?
I’m glad you asked. Again, it goes back to what do children do to occupy their time. They play, eat, sleep, and learn how to grow and be a part of their family. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I help them get stronger and more coordinated to meet their developmental milestones, learn to eat and develop a positive relationship with food, help them begin to engage within their world, and educate the parents to promote learning throughout the child’s day.
And the best part is that I do all of this through the avenue of play so most of the time the children do not even know they are working. Hell, sometimes it looks so fun that the parents don’t even realize that their kids are working too.
Sometimes even the client’s pets get in on the OT action
It’s A Complex Beast
From what I just laid out, it is obvious that occupational therapy is an extremely diverse field. I attempted to highlight a few snippets of the profession, but there are many other areas that OTs work in like mental health, schools, hippotherapy, driving rehab, ergonomics, hand therapy, Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), home and lifestyle modifications, skilled nursing facilities, and the list goes on and on.
And I might be biased, but I feel that occupational therapy is an awesome field too.
But unfortunately, it is still a profession that often times flies under the radar. Many people have no idea what we do or have a limited perception of what we are capable of.
Over the past few years, I have come to realize that our field needs more recognition, more awareness of what we do. We don’t help people find jobs (something that many people assume is our role based on our title), we help people live life.
What’s yours?
Living Life to Its Fullest
Wait a second. Living life?
That seems to tie right into the FIRE mindset.
All of us reading this post right now are looking to live a better life, by setting ourselves up with better financial health and reorganizing our time to spend it doing the things we love.
[Unless, of course, you ended up here looking for a good waffle recipe. Have no fear, we have that too, just click here.]
Many people within the FIRE realm do not like their jobs. They can’t wait to retire early and get on doing the things that they enjoy. But for occupational therapists, we actually love what we do. We might not love the productivity standards, insurance limitations, paperwork demands or other job stipulations, but at the root of what we do, we ultimately love our profession.
And I feel extremely fortunate that I stumbled into a profession that is about helping people become independent and either learn to do or get back to doing what really matters to them. It is a job that is immensely meaningful and adds purpose to my life, as well as to the lives of my clients.
But I’ve always felt I am a bit of an outsider in the FIRE-sphere being that I love my job. And now that I am beginning to meet other OTs also on this path, its becoming even more apparent.
We are a rare breed that is pursuing a life of freedom and opportunity, while also contributing to a profession that we love that is all about meaning and purpose.
Retiring Early as an Occupational Therapist?
Sometimes I wish that I was in a profession that I could just walk away from when the FI numbers lined up. This would definitely make things a little easier for me, but I know that I will always be an OT and want to continue my work in some capacity or another.
I’m not sure that I will ever retire early, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t change the capacity in which I work.
As many of you know, I am big into medical volunteerism and that is actually a huge “why of FI” for me. Over the past few years, I have volunteered at a pediatric clinic in Ecuador (twice) and in Peru. And already this year, I have travelled as part of a medical brigade to Cambodia and Honduras.
Sign on the door of the OT treatment room in Peru
I mean, you know you love your job if you are willing to do it for free, right?
I do not know what my life will look like as the years unfold, but I do know that having financial independence will allow me to continue to live my life to the fullest. If I want to keep working, I can. If I want to quit my full-time job and volunteer full-time, I can do that too. It’s an interesting predicament.
Any Other OTs on FIRE Out There?
Like I mentioned before, I’m writing this post to bring awareness of our profession to those who are not familiar with it, but also to connect with other occupational therapists who are also on this journey. Dean, Sarah, Laurena, and Nathan it has been awesome to connect with you guys over the past few months and hear your stories as an occupational therapist on the path to FI. And I hope to meet more as I continue down this journey.
If you are an OT (or know of one) who is also on the simple path to FI, give a shout out in the comments, I’d love to know you are here. Let’s continue to grow this community and support each other as we pursue financial independence all while having a profession that we care about.
I’d also love to know what your favorite occupations are?
