How can you feel retired now?
Not sitting in front of the TV all day and all night sort of way that will be your ultimate fate. Not in the life revolving around prescription medications and doctor appointment way that is a result of excessive hard work and a lifetime of bad habits. Not in the barely making it through the day sort of way that millions of elderly suffer through on a daily basis.
But in having a life where you have huge amounts of free time stretching out before your way. And all that time is available for you to satisfy your desires. And that time is yours to decide what you want to do in each of those moments.
You are not overly physically restricted by weakness and frailty.
Your life is not consumed by fear. Fear of falling. Fear of the weather. Fear of illness. Fear of running out of money. Fear of news from the doctor. Fear of a negative retirement. And the fear of death.
Your schedule is not dictated by doctors and medications.
When I think of feeling retired now, it is a relaxed life where I can physically do things that make me happy and I have the time to do those things. I am grateful to retire and grateful for my life now. A life where I have no need for prescription medications and doctor visits. A life where the people in my life do not demand from me more than what I am able to provide.
That is the type of feeling I am searching for. And that is what you really want too. You can change your life around, starting today, for the better.
The goals you set for your life and your retirement dreams are everything for you.
You don’t want to wait until you are too old, too frail, too weak, and too dependent on medications and doctors and others for your survival.
That day will come…no doubt. It comes for us all.
What I mean is finding a way to feel like you are retired now. Enjoy your life now. Along with making strides toward an early retirement you make strides toward a good-feeling life now.
Here are some ways that I Feel Retired Now
1. I take more time for myself. When I was married I had very little time for myself. My life was ruled by my wife. If all your time is spent catering to the demands of other people, especially family, then your life will suck. Once I left my wife my life started on an upward path again. When I was married I was just concerned with making it through the day. I had no desire to retire and be with her. I had no desire to be old. I honestly hoped that I would die young to avoid being with her in my old age.
2. Say no more to stuff that hinders your free time. Saying no to whatever it is you don’t want to do is a start. Avoiding the normal circumstances that others tend to impose upon you is an even easier way to deal with this. Everyone is eager to fill their life with more problems and responsibilities. I guess you can’t blame them for wanting to make their lives better by making yours worse. But it is not your job to take on everyone’s problems. The more you say no to anything that does not help your life, the better your life becomes.
3. Just be happy. Accept the now. Feel retired now by embracing each moment. It sounds cheesy but the more you choose to be happy moment by moment, the better your life becomes.
4. Do more socializing. What I mean is to get past your shyness or your perceived awkwardness around others. If you can just start to be a little more friendly and easy going it just opens up so many more opportunities for you.
5. Take time to relax. This is huge. Most of life seems intent on you hustling and working hard all the time and rushing from place to place and from one activity to another. Life does not have to be that way. It is better the exact opposite of that way.
6. Eliminate stress. The thing about stress is that it takes different forms. What works for me is to analyze what in my life frustrates me the most and then concentrate on that aspect to get the opposite.
7. Spend time with friends and make new friends.
8. Just be more loving. Work on your retirement relationships either by strengthening your good relationships or eliminating the bad ones.
9. Do it. Start your retirement preparation and planning and make progress continuously.
10. Spend your money on YOU.
This is a difficult issue for most people. Society is set up to guilt you into giving up your money for others without you putting up much of a fuss about it. The more you do this though, the worse your life becomes. This is your life to enjoy. If most of your money goes towards taking care of others, you cannot enjoy it.
It is critical that you limit how many people you need to care for. Having a stay-at-home spouse will cripple you financially. Having too many children relative to your income is almost as crippling. There is just no way to feel retired now if you have none of your own money to buy anything that you want to buy.
I know this is difficult to hear. I know how we are told otherwise. But the truth is that your life is only as good as the excess of money you have to meet your desires. Having money in excess of what you need to survive is the key to your happiness.
There are various ways to achieve this. Making lots of money is the sexiest way. Having a huge income with lots of assets is the way a lot of us would like to live our lives. But the reality is that most of you will struggle and suffer with lack.
You can go the other way too. Eliminate bills and your living expenses so that even if you do not make a large income you will have the excess.
I believe that you can do both to feel retired now. You can eliminate expenses and have a small overhead. This is why I talk about avoiding an expensive home. The home payments, utility bills, maintenance, and repairs eat up way too much of your normal income for you to have any excess cash. I also talk about making more money. Getting a better-paying job. Starting small internet businesses or other businesses to increase the amount of money coming to you.
But in addition to that you have to look at what causes you to buy expensive houses and takes all your free time away from income-producing activities. The cause for most men is a high-maintenance wife. You are not going to be able to feel retired now or even have any hope of a good life if all your time, money, and effort is spent taking care of others.
Being married to the wrong woman will devastate you financially. Most of the old men you see who are working late into their 60s have an expensive wives and are spending too much on their adult children. This only works when you are rich.
Having a non-working spouse and too many children is a disaster for the poor, the working poor, and most of the middle class. If you are reading this you know who you are. Anyone who works any type of normal job can understand that each adult in the family has to pull their financial weight and each child in the family has to have modest needs and understand that they too will need to grow up and become independent as soon as possible.
The short story is that the best dads are rich and old. They can afford to have their wives stay home and pamper them and their children. Those rich dads can feel retired now and enjoy spending huge amounts of money on their families. I would love to do that. If I had it that is what I would do. Most men choose to be as generous as they can. But most of us cannot do that.
But some of us seem to want to do that to anyone. We allow our wives to stay out of the workforce. We buy a way too expensive home. We get overextended with multiple car loans or leases and rack up the credit card bills trying to satisfy the insatiable demands of our families.
So don’t do that.
If you are married and your spouse refuses to work, you have to leave that person.
If you have a child or two already you need to get your tubes tied or have a vasectomy. Each child you have is another enormous expense and another person you are responsible for. It is hard enough to take care of yourself. When you add more children and potentially more grandchildren to the mix you will feel the pressure to help, you will have little money of your own to feel retired now. How can you? All your energy, time, and money will be going to others.
You can feel retired now. You can have a good life. But you have to concentrate on it. Your life has to be your focus.
