Are you retired? This is a question I get often.
My answer is: “No, I am not retired anymore. I retired early, when I was 22.” Followed by: “I came out of retirement around 40 as it seemed time to follow my calling, settle down and get to work. I was living on Maui and wanted to be part of a community.”
I was an early adopter of the philosophy that – Life is short and unpredictable, Eat Dessert First!
Retire first, you never know when the next Pandemic will be.
I was barely in my 20s when I dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin. I made a 180-degree pivot from the normal life path that society expected at the time. I may have even expected it from myself at the time. I flew off to Egypt to be a geophysical surveyor in the Sahara Desert and the rest is my history.
Being retired in your 20s and 30s is pretty cool, actually. You’re young, healthy, and have almost no overhead. You can hitchhike across the Swiss Alps in the wintertime with a sleeping bag, some cheese, a baguette, and a bottle of water if that is what you want to do. And I did.
You have no bills or student debt, plus you’ve got a ton of energy. You can party all night with Aussies in London and still wake up early for the bus leaving for Istanbul, Tehran, or Dharamshala, India.
Being a geophysical surveyor was not my dream career, this was simply the start of my 20-year uncharted retirement; an experiment of literally going with the flow. I had NO plan.
With no plan, you simply wake up one day and realize this job in Egypt sucks. Where should I go now? Maybe Athens and then hitchhike to London? You can ask yourself a few questions and make a spontaneous decision to move on, right then and there.
No application for time off, no permission needed from anyone. Just go. Do the Swiss Alps sound good? Great, I think I’ll go tomorrow.
In London, I was walking around one day and walked into a pub near Queensway, just off Bayswater Road near Hyde Park, and got a job. Cash under the table, of course, the same way my Irish colleagues were paid. Plus, all-you-can-eat shepherd’s pie for lunch!
I had been a bar manager in Austin. Not that big of a leap. Plus, after Egypt, the pub patrons spoke Arabic, so I felt right at home.
The start of another adventure!
A few months later, in London, I met some cool Aussies at the hostel I was staying at, and before I knew it, we were off in a VW bus, touring all the must-see spots and learning how to roll joints the European way with hash and tobacco.
I got to do things like the epic Summer Solstice party at Stonehenge!
There were great rock bands into the night, leading up to a silent sunrise. As the whispering pre-dawn breeze flapped the blankets we were wrapped in, the Druids in full, white robes welcomed the first rays of the sunrise, blazing like a laser, dead center between the massive stones.
Our threesome turned around at Tintagel, King Arthur’s mythical castle, and two months later, after hanging out in Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford upon the Avon, we parted ways in London as they returned to Down Under.
Retiring first or last has its pros and cons, just like anything else
Maybe you’re one of those people who know EXACTLY what you want to do and which career path you want to follow at 22. Obviously, you will want to follow that path as it is calling you.
Chances are, you will get your degree, a six-figure income, and retire with great savings and investments at 65. And there are also other chances that you may not. There may be a Great Financial Crisis that comes along and messes with your plans.
Maybe you’re a person who really does NOT KNOW what you want to do or which career path you want to spend your life on – like me. I didn’t even know that my future career (massage therapist) existed when I was 22.
Looking back, I have to say – I have zero regrets. I couldn’t have even DREAMED the life I ended up living. It is so much richer, deeper, and more fulfilling than anything I ever thought possible when I left home at 18.
Doing work that is stimulating and keeps us engaged with people is priceless. Plus, once you finally get really good at something, why suddenly stop because you’re a certain age?
Like Willie Nelson, who’s 90, I love the work I do, whether it’s massage therapy or freelance writing. I get to stay interested and curious, learning all sorts of cool stuff. Plus, I am able to interact with wonderful people who become my clients. I can’t imagine stopping.
This story began with a random thought drifting by one day
To start at the beginning of this story, go back to the first episode, You Can Do Nothing Anywhere; This story is where it all started, with a random thought that drifted through my head one day during lunch.
See you there!