I got bored of waiting — are good things coming?
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Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle — Abraham Lincoln
Be patient, they say. Good things come to those who wait.
Okay. But I’m admittedly more than a little impatient. How long are you actually expected to wait for these so-called good things to come in? And how do you know when to stop waiting, and to get on and start hustling for them good things yourself?
I mean, there’s a long game, and there’s a long game.
I’m not someone who is going to stick around and wait for long. I do like quick results, but I get that you have to work for them. Honestly. I did well at school, I got good grades, and I can figure things out fast — which means that going slowly literally nearly kills me.
So when I’m working on a goal and it takes more time to achieve — more time than I’m happy about putting into it, I get twitchy.
And that’s exactly how I felt about retiring. I really didn’t see why I had to work so hard for so long, for such a short amount of sweet time to live life on my terms.
It made no sense.
So for several years of my career, I’d say about the 3rd, 4th and 5th year — every year my New Year’s Resolution was the same: Retire.
From about age 24 onwards — my goal each year was just to retire. And in hindsight I realise I never meant stop working, or stop contributing. It was more about not working in a job that didn’t completely light me up, making compromises and sacrifices in my personal life in order to progress in my career, and basically having more time in my garden.
By this point, I realised I wanted a homestead. And working in the city was not conducive to that plan in the slightest.
The society I was raised in teaches us that this is what retirement is for — once you’ve worked hard for a bazillion years, then, and only then, may you do what the fuck you like.
But that wasn’t going to cut it for me. I wasn’t up for 35 more years doing hard labour in a job that suddenly no longer fit with my vision for my life.
