Featured A Life’s Lesson

Spot on Wessa.
20 years ago I moved from Nottingham to Cornwall to escape the rat race, worked in Cornwall for about 15 years on lower pay then retired early.
As a result I'm financially poorer, my pension is about half what it would've been had I stayed in that well payed job in Nottingham, but have no regrets.......except.
Should've done it 20 years earlier.

 

Couldn't agree more, I left the home counties just over 40 years ago and moved to Somerset, worked in a job travelling in Somerset and Dorset.
I was asked several times to take a promotion to move to our head office in the midlands, but declined as my quality of life mattered more to me than a few extra pounds in salary.

I am now retired and as Col C says probably a bit poorer but the life here is much better and I certainly have no regrets. We even get to send the grockels on down the M5 to Col C in Cornwall!!

 

We're just looking at moving down towards Somerset, Devon etc.
Lived in the SE for most of my life but I took early retirement back in 2018, my wife's now between jobs thanks to the lockdown, so it seems a good time to look for somewhere else a bit more relaxed......

 

I LOVE this fable, @Wessa. I first heard it years ago as told by Mr. Sandi and have heard it many times since then. It's one of the stories he tells that never gets old because the message is so spot on and a great reminder about those things in life that are truly important.

Thanks for sharing it. I'm glad it's a featured thread!!

 

I come from a Polish family who worked and worked and worked. It is my life. Not like the fable, of gaining more money and resources, but doing things for people and fixing things is what I enjoy. I don't think I could be happy with a life where I need to decide what to do next. I want a list of projects and to be left alone to accomplish what I can. Retirement for me holds no treasure. I think I will be like my father and quietly die after a day's labor.

 

I "jumped off the roundabout" at age 40 after a career in financial services. Moved to Scotland and set up a stud farm breeding horses. Not a big money thing but loads of satisfaction. For my 40th birthday we had an outdoor party complete with bonfires and my main present, fully set-up complete with sails, in the pride of place. I had a great time in Scotland.

But time moves and I well remember my 50th birthday bash spent in France with a mixture of about 50 of French and English friends outside the front of our newly acquired house in France.

60th saw me still living France, still loving it totally. Hopefully I'll still feel the same in a couple of years for my 70th.

My wife and I decided that the pressures to be 'successful' in a modern day western style life were hollow to us, so we took 'our' track.

We have a lot less money than if I'd stayed in my career, but have a lot more happiness and contentment.

 

Time is our most precious commodity.
"Man no more knows his own time that a fish caught in the fatal net, or birds caught in the snare; like these the children of men are caught when the evil time falls suddenly upon them"

Live life like you mean it. Tomorrow is not ours to know.

 

Worked 6/7 days a week in Manufacturing Maintenance and Production, one day had that light bulb moment, made career/country switch into Further Education in 2003 and from then on had weekends and great holidays with the family, money was a fair bit less but!!

Hopefully retire fully in 2yrs time but only working 3 days a week now best thing I ever done apart from finding my wife!!

 

So the wife's on this forum too then?

 

I am lucky, in that I am still doing my job because I genuinely love it. Have said for the last 12 years I will leave the moment I stop enjoying it.....still here

 

Yup Babes n Bikes section

 

Another early retiree here. Did go back to work again for a few weeks earlier this year but the enjoyment was not there anymore (like my memory ) so decided I’d retire for good this time. I still have another four years before official retirement but financially I’m ok and I can go on trips any time I like (except the UK at the moment). I have no regrets, I left school at 16 and worked virtually continuously till the age of 61 so I think that’s enough.
If you are still working and enjoy it, that’s great.

 

I retired way back at the end of 2008. I had been working full time.since 1963. Although I loved what I did, I hated the environment. Management as a group are clueless as to what technical people bring to the table. All they want to do is manipulate, politic, and dominate. I did not need it. Never had any aspirations about being in management. I planned my escape and took the money and ran at 63 years old. Don't know what passes for an Operating Engineer these days. I have no communication with that world anymore. ...J.D.

 

I love that story.
When I was 19 I worked maintenance at a retirement community and the residents would often come chat with me. They all said to do it when you’re young and I really took that to heart. I decided I want to surf all around the world. I would live as cheap as possible, work and save enough money to travel and go surfing every year for as long as the money lasted (usually 2-3 months) then I’d come back home and repeat the process. This is how I spent my 20’s then as I was turning 30 I got worried about my future so I stopped traveling and bought a house instead and just worked, thinking what an idiot I was for ever listening to those old folks and how far behind in life I was. So my 30’s were mostly work and with that taking on more responsibilities, but eventually I missed traveling . So my 40’s have been more balanced with one international trip a year but with all these responsibilities now I can only get away for two weeks or so. Now as I’m getting close to 50 I realize that the advice I took to heart all those years ago was spot on and I’m so lucky I had those experiences when I did, your only young once.