My first brush with retirement was after graduating from college. I decided to backpack through Europe before I started looking for a “real” job. It was an eye opening experience. Just as military service is required for every Israeli Citizen. Every American Citizen should be required to take a break between college (high school) and a 40 – 60 hours work week, 2 weeks of vacation and an ever increasing co-pay to experience life. Life after college shouldn’t involve $2k of debt to own wonderful things. Let’s start life after college with $2k in debt for experiences.
I retired two more times after my initial stint. My last retirement involved moving to Costa Rica to help out our friends while they took care of a hotel in the middle of nowhere on the Pacific Ocean for 3 months. Our days consisted of waking up, then making breakfast for the hotel guests. Well, when I say making breakfast, I have never made anything anyone would want to eat, but I did serve them the food my boyfriend made. Next on the agenda, spend time with the ocean, have sex, take a shower, then a nap. To close out the day we gathered fresh fish, vegetables, and fruit for the night’s dinner. Mike cooked shirtless and I served shoeless. When service was over we would drink a beer and visit the ocean, the moon and the stars then go to bed listening to the ocean. I learned life is best with good food, people and pura vida.
I have spent the last two years working a wonderfully challenging job that I have really enjoyed but also had extreme amounts of stress that I am not sure I know how to deal with. Maybe the way to deal with it is to hunt for mushrooms throughout the country for the next 6 months.
I would be crazy to leave such a great job, but maybe I will become crazy if I don't.
