Early retirement?
One of the advantages of having my own business is, I have always thought, that I am doing something I enjoy and having responsibility for my own working life. In fact, having responsibility for all of my life.
In employment, we may think we have a career, but if we work for someone else, however ambitious we are, we are always going to be dependent on other people’s opinions about us, right or wrong. There will always be an element of “seeing out our time” until we retire. That amounts , at best, to being on a ladder to climb in the world of employment, and at worst, a treadmill. I am not sure where I used to be before being unexpectedly ejected, but I cannot say the overall experience of employment was entirely wonderful, though I had some fun.
To me, having my own businesses means I am in control of my own destiny.
The other day I was sitting in a waiting room talking as you do to a guy I had met briefly a couple of times before. Our appointments were running very behind so we had quite a long time to chat. My companion told me he had retired at the age of forty-seven and taken a pension, which meant he had been retired for fifteen years. I guess he was fortunate to have one of those old-fashioned final salary pensions which we all wish we had or could qualify for.
I know the guy has a serious hobby working with wood, but it is not a business. So is working with a hobby doing, or is it just being? If he had run even a part-time business for the last fifteen years would that have been more in the way of doing? Should not we keep ourselves sharper by doing?
I cannot imagine not working at something even if it is voluntary work, because surely we should keep our brains active? Is having an activity without a beneficial end result for someone else not doing, but just being? I do not want to judge my new acquaintance, but just to understand him.
Would you just like to be or do you always want to do?
