Gold:Select to expand quoteMy role is just to be a bad influence, the kid standing outside the classroom window making faces at you at your desk, urging you to just this once make some excuse and get out of there, come outside and play.
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/Select to expand quoteThe goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system." This may sound like the pronouncement of some bong-smoking anarchist, but it was actually Arthur C. Clarke, who found time between scuba diving and pinball games to write "Childhood's End" and think up communications satellites.
I'm reaching that half-way point in my life where I am seriously considering what the **** I am doing. For example a colleague once commented off-hand to me years ago "You know, the more I think about it the more I realise I'm wasting my money if I don't spend it all." It has stuck with me ever since.
Also, the best things in life really are free. It's not just some whimsical and whiny attempt to make a sad person happy, like saying that rain on your wedding day is good luck or something. I was (trapped?) in Double Bay the other day. There was a Lamborghini Aventador. Probably the first in the country. People crowded around, taking photos. Actually it was getting a parking ticket. The guy driving this wouldn't really be enjoying himself, all these people staring and evaluating. This is just stress. I walked down the Harbour, took a (free 'cause I couldn't see how or where to pay) ferry to Watson's Bay through all the yachts racing around the harbour. FN beautiful.
I'm half tempted to sell everything I own. 
Minimalise and blow it all on holidays.
I am SO WITH YOU. Just stuck on the 'sell everything I own' bit with the super sluggish housing market 
My Dad - worked very hard, successful, well respected for the wonderful job he did, but never any time for fun, joy or fulfilling his dreams. Dead at 49. Any sign now of all the hard work he did? Zero. Last week my Mum went back to one of his old work places for the first time in many years and it had long since been converted to something else. She stood there and cried. Partly to think that all his hard work had been for nothing. The work that he ultimately gave his life to. And partly because she sees me heading down the exact same path.
I don't want to be that. Just for once, I want to be the one who goes outside and plays.
I've been with far too many people as they died. I'm yet to hear anyone, on their death bed, say something like, "I wish I'd just worked harder or longer" or "I wasted far too much of my life with friends and family". The only things of lasting value are the relationships we create and nurture.
"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child"
-Unknown
Work to live
dont
Live to work.
Yes we need financial comfort but once comfortable ease off...
Work 4 days instead of 5
Leave work at work
Take holidays with family and spend some cash.
Took me a while to learn this lesson but I am a Sh1t load happier now...
and so is the family 
Kids are expensive and the experience highly overated imo. The way I see it, by not having kids, you exponentially increase your income and your leasure time. That way, you can have a work/life balance. Middle class welfare kind of grates with me. It is not rocket science to work out the cost of raising a child/children (there is plenty of historical data out there).
By bronnieware.com/
The top 5 regrets people have on their deathbed
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
From W. C. Fields one of my favourite quotes
"I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women. The other half I wasted."
Interesting thread.
It's easy to remember the few that died at 45-50-55yo and wished they had spent it all, right there and then. Mate of mine just died right after his early retirement. All those plans gone awaste... (don't smoke, kids - painful death).
It's too easy to forget the other quiet 95%: those who ran out of means at 70yo and live in ** conditions and 2nd-class health care.
A balance has to be reached - the whole thing is a gamble.
I too feel like it's time to "close shop" and go walkabout somehow. But it's gotta be done intelligently, so as not to run out of means by 60yo with 30 years left of living in squalor...
Intelligently is the part that stumps me, of course: sell out at 45yo? 55yo? After kids leave home? Force kids out? Rent the house to the kids? Spend it all then just jump off the bridge? Spend it all then live at the expense of society? With or without the missus?
Tough one... luckily we prepared. Stopped the nesting thing long time ago. Concentrated on sailing and the kids instead. And none of those renovations like they do on TV. What a waste of money and life...
I'd rather have an Aventador with a parking ticket than no Aventador.
Such a mean machine.
Some people seem to love working, whatever floats your boat!
Panda,
thanks for that link - I'm always telling people that I'm only busy cause i'm a lazy bastard.
Another great line from his article;
"I can't help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn't a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn't matter."
My favourite is the last half of the sentence right before that.
(If) your job wasn't performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I'm not sure I believe it's necessary. 
Hmmm. People who own a Lamborghini are either: rich enough to go to the Lamborghini shop and buy one (includes company cars); or not rich enough and buying it on credit and will give it back when the lease/money run out.
Either way, you don't get any style points for buying stuff from a shop. You have to do stuff to get style points.
People who are going to give it all up and live the dream have enough money to ... live the dream. It's no fun not going to work when you can't afford the toys to play with, or the resources to get where you need to be to do the playing.
I do know guys who have lived the dream from the beginning. They were pro-windsurfers/skiers/paraglider pilots from way back. They built businesses where their passion was also their living. There is a fair bit to be said for that and the people who did it. One thing is for sure, they did not go out playing every day. Some did it really well. Many had crappy old cars, rented houses, worn out gear, the stress of dealing with incompetents on a daily basis. On the plus side, they were able inject some pure joy into people's lives and that joy turned into a lifestyle.
I have heard "the greatest happiness comes from your relationships" line in the past. You can equally say that "the greatest *un*happiness comes from your relationships". Ungrateful, greedy kids on drugs. Money grubbing, cheating girlfriends. Boring, fat, nagging old wives (of both sexes).
^^ That's a painting GreenWife did before she met me. I suppose she could paint me into it now...
I think we should petition the government (and get the unions onside) to make it mandatory that you have your "retirement" between the age of 20 and 50, then work from 50 till you die.
That way you get to enjoy your "retirement" when you are young and fit enough to "enjoy" it.
WELL, at least thats what I used to think until I hit 50, now it doesn't look like such a good idea.
Just chatting to a guy at work today - he's climbed the ladder and got as far as he can in a big company in WA. After 3 years he was looking for a change - 3yrs further on after not finding that change he has just told his employer he is going to two (2!!!) days a week - at 50yo. Decided he is no longer interested in chasing the bucks and life is for living...
Not a bad decision and a position many of us would like to be in at 50yo.
