As we speak, a lot of financial bloggers are attaining the stage in their lives where they can live on dividend payouts. Sustaining this for a few more years may even allow them to live on 4% of their income. This means that they can decouple from the workforce and then deal with the messy issues of early retirement like how to craft a personal identity without a day job.

But many of these financial bloggers will not be RICH. This is because financial capital is only one component of a person's wealth.

Sociological studies in the UK define an elite as a class with three forms of capital - financial capital, social capital and cultural capital. People in the FIRE movement dedicate their entire lives into obtaining financial capital.  Once you understand that society will reward capital more than labor, dedicating your waking hours to the accumulation of capital instead of...