Recently when I share that I wished to retire at 40, I received a lot of critical opinion like retirement is when you have no options, or retirement is when you let your brain dies, or retirement would be the death of you. It seems people have the misconception that being retired equals being useless, inactive, lazy, giving up, and lost of purpose for life. So much for labels. I've learned that most people who retire early don't really care what other people think. It is all about how you think about yourself, and what is best for yourself!
The reason I wanted to retire at 40 is because ever since I started work back in 2002, I have never stopped or took a break. When I graduated I was in debt and I had like 800SGD in my bank account to last me 2 months. I was so nervous that I thought I could start work the moment I left school so that I could start earning money. My new employee told me to wait and start 2 months later. I came from a poor family, had no asset, and no savings. I only had a few goals in life then: to travel, and to own a place of my own.
After working for 15 years, I realised that each job demands more of my time, and although I was earning good money, I found myself lacking in time to actually do the things I wanted to do. Leave and vacation was limited to the number of public holidays and number of leave I was entitled to. Even then, I traveled. I travel every year. This was one of the reason it took me ten years to pay off my study loan.
As I travelled, I was always pondering the balance between youth and physical fitness, and the time to do all the things you've wanted to do. Many people wait till 50 or 60 to retire and travel. And when the reach the places they have always wanted to go to, they couldn't make it up or down the stairs, couldn't walk properly, was so burden with so much health issue they couldn't enjoy the food there. So, would you still enjoy all the joys in life then?
The other thought always in my head was, what if I never live up to that age? After all, life is unpredictable. Sometimes I worked till there is no evening or night time for myself, or even weekends and holidays. After a while, you start to question, what are you really working for? What is your purpose here on this earth? Is it just to work and earn a living? Or something more? When you work too much, you don't even have time to think and plan your life properly.
Because of that, I always keep journals, writing down my thoughts and my ideas. Above is one of them. Here's the thought process:
- What if, you have one whole year free. What would you do?
- What if time was just a concept, and you can live your life without it? Not having to report to work, never late for meetings, always having plenty of time on your side? No need to rush anywhere....
- What if you cook and eat your own food instead of eating out?
- What if you stop buying things and start making things?
- What if you have no excuses to skip exercise?
How would you spend your time then? To me, time was the upmost importance. We can all carry on earning money, but we can never get back time that has past, and we can never extend time once it is over....
So that is what retirement means to me - Freedom from time and money.
Freedom to plan my own path in life. To live on your own terms.
And this blog is the beginning of that journey....
I will write more about money in the next blog. Stay tune!
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