My brother and I are putting the wraps on a pretty good sports weekend. Two baseball games at AT&T and two futbol games yesterday at Cafe Trieste (Uruguay win, USA loss).Not much to say today about the stock market, I haven't even looked at Barron's yet, but we had a pretty interesting philosophical discussion in between World Cup games.
First from my friend from Walker who said "you can figure it out now or you can figure it out later but if you can figure it out now you will be much happier."
Larry and I were talking about demographic issues with baby boomers and gen X-ers and the differences between the two. Larry made a point about aging that has never occurred to me. One problem people have with turning 40 can be the sense of getting to that age and lamenting the various things not achieved or other types of failures that some folks can have. These can be monetary and also be tied to not being where you want to be in terms of all sorts of personal issues.
While there won't really be any solutions here, the importance of getting to where you want to be personally will make all the money stuff written about here and on other sites you read much easier to achieve.
FWIW if you wish away the week to get to the weekend then look for a new job. In this economy it might take much longer than you would hope but even the search can be a positive. The other thing I would bring up is some sort of volunteer work. Despite the problems our fire department is having I can't tell you how fulfilling this is in my life. I love the very hard work of trying to fight a wildfire or trying to help someone on a medical call. For me this creates part of what I perceive as my sense of purpose. For you there is likely something else that would do the same thing. Some will already have this in their life and for those who don't I would say to spend time seeking it out.
4 comments:
I love my job and my life right now, but there have been times in my life when I hated my job and did wish for the weekend to come.
While I agree people should come up with a long term plan for change, people sometimes have to do what they have to do. They have mortgages, spouses, children, and 401ks to fund for later in life. Hard work even at thing we do not enjoy deserves a lot of respect. Most people will not have jobs they love, but are acting very responsible and should be encouraged to continue.
Oftentimes it's the things we do for pleasure rather than money that bring the deepest psychic rewards, although one also needs to 'take care of business'. A friend of mine (50's, like me) is in my field (IT consulting), loves it, constantly upgrades his skills, also has a hobby he loves and spends much time at, and also, declared bankruptcy recently. Another bud, my age, went into a line of work he loved, washed out in a couple years, went into the military for 1 hitch, and has been unemployed for several years, financially scraping by. I went into IT out of high school because I couldn't think of anything else to do, managed to stay steadily employed although I can't say i have ever loved it; and I have a very healthy 401k balance, roth, and some taxable funds lying around "just in case". I guess my point in these rambling examples is that, everyone needs to find balance in his/her life.
I really enjoyed today post.
When friends and family ask my wife and I what we like best about retirement near the beach in southern coastal North Carolina they expect us to say the location, seafood off the boats, golf, cultural activities, low taxes, nightlife and/or fine dining.
Sure, all of the above are present and accounted for, but the biggest joy in our lives next to family is the volunteer work we participate in. Working with at-risk youth at the public middle school,directing a church music program, teaching citizenship obligations to illegals (I want them to pay taxes just like me) and assisting newlyweds face financial life head on through a modest center for economic literacy we endowed through our church far and away surpass material pleasures, and has made the quality of our retirement greatly enhanced.
My wife of 37 years and I are happy that we worked (and continue to work) diligently,had great children and lived well beneath our means to be able to share with others the blessings of volunteer activities.
Roger,
Thank you for the thoughtful post - like always.
My two cents: I have to agree with Anon (6:00am) - "people sometimes have to do what they have to do". Jobs are rarely a love-affair, and even the few that are go through many rough patches where you find yourself wishing for the weekend.
Acting very responsibly in these situations, considering "mortgages, spouses, children and 401ks", is key to achieve your long term objectives.
SA2
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