As I am navigating through this thing called life and trying to decide what’s next (move to a new city, country or explore a new career).  I have been thinking a lot about retirement.  People say that once your work is your passion; your work no longer feels like a job.  You will never have a desire to retire.  Well, girlfriend is not at that place yet.

My career has been successful so far.  I have truly enjoyed all of my many work opportunities and the people whom I have worked with over the years.  However, Monday has never been my favorite day of the week.  Unless a holiday falls on a Monday.    Sunday night comes and I realize week after week that there never is enough time to explore all of the other important things in life I enjoy but do not generate an income.  So even though I am not near traditional retirement age.  And I am open to the idea of discovering a new passion and earning a living doing it until the day I die.  I have been DREAMING a lot about RETIREMENT and during it early.

In my super hero mind I am this spontaneous and bohemian carefree person who moves fluently through life but at the core I know I am a planner.  Although, I veer from those plans sometimes.  A girl still likes a good plan.  A starting point.  Thus, the researching, goal setting and planning began.

DREAM, SET A GOAL OR VISION, PLAN, EXECUTE, REVISE!

I always like to start with questions. Will I ever be able to retire? What will it take for me to retire?  I forgot to share with you that these questions are being ask by a recovering workaholic.  A person who missed her flight to Spain because I was at home working instead of getting to the airport on time.  Yes, my sister who was meeting me in Amsterdam so we could catch the flight to Spain together was PISSED!

First Question: Will I ever be able to retire? YES!
Second Question: When do I want to retire? TODAY…LOL not possible.

You see, I just discovered the FIRE (Financially Independent Retire Early) movement.  I will not be able to retire at the new TRENDY age of 30.  I am a Gen. Xer and 30 has come and gone.  However, I know that I do not want to ‘HAVE TO’ work until the age of 70 either which Social Security and most old school financial advisors recommend to maximize investments.  I want to retire somewhat early which for me means around 55.  More importantly than the exact age of retirement is achieving the financial independence to do so if I so desire.

I am not going to go into financial steps to retirement here. I am not a personal financial expert.  There are a ton of sites that can walk you through the roadmap to retirement.  I simply want to start the dialog on the desire to retire early and being okay to live in that truth.  You see, I am often taken back by the amount of people who look at me crazy when I say that I want to retire early.  Yes, surprisingly I get negative comments, doubt that it is even possible and ‘eye rolling’ like who do you think you are.  But the biggest surprise is when they ask

“What would you do with all your time?”
“Aren’t you going to be bored?”
“I mean, how much traveling do you really want to do?”

PEOPLE, I agree work is important!  You gotta eat.  And it does bring some satisfaction to the soul.  But there is more to life than just working .  Why is our identity so attached to career and work in this society?  This is something that I am asking myself because I am guilty of it.  So, a question that began with how can I retire early has led me to a bigger question of how can we start identifying ourselves by who we are instead of what we do to make money.

When you meet someone for the first time and they ask you to tell them a little about yourself, do you automatically lead with your job title?  If so, why?  We are so much more.  We are captains of our own universe, stewards of this beautiful planet and so on….

I am curious, what your thoughts are on this subject?