Dreaming Of A Midlife Crisis

I have to confess something.  More and more these days I’m finding myself thinking about what it would take to check out of the rat race.  I don’t care about having the fanciest stuff, or the latest and greatest tech gadget.  I really want to have the option to just do absolutely nothing as much as I want.

I think it stems from a few things.  First is seeing how happy my friend who retired is.  Sure, he’s older than I am but that doesn’t change the fact that I would sure like to be in his lifestyle situation.  He did a lot of things right to retire around 50.  It’s unrealistic to think that I have done lots of things right that would give me the ability to retire at that age, or even earlier, for that matter.  Sure we are savers and have amassed a decent set of assets but not nearly enough to check out now.

I also keep thinking about all the posts that JD @ Get Rich Slowly has done on the 4 hour work week and reading about various people that have bucked the trend and are working on their terms.  Blogging for a living is a little scary and I can’t even begin to dream about that because I don’t have the readership, or revenues of some of the other guys that have actually done that.  The chicken in me also worries about what I would do if the income stream died off.  Frankly, it would be a lot harder to generate my current income level on my own than it is to just stay at my current job.

As I get a little bit older, I find myself wondering, "What’s the point of it all?"  I suppose this might be due to the fact that I’m not doing work that I’m passionate about.  I mean, do you know anyone that is passionate about doing process development and managing lots of customer expectations?  I don’t.  "Why don’t you do something that you are passionate about then?" you ask.  Well, probably because I don’t know what that is.  Frankly, I probably need the type of job where I’m out and about all day visiting customers.  I absolutely love dealing with people and working from home just doesn’t give me as much of that.

So, what are my options?  Well, I could sell everything I own and end up with a decent chunk of change that I could generate basic interest income off of.  It would probably give me enough to rent a modest apartment and buy basic necessities but the reality is that there are too many variables that could tank that plan.  I don’t have enough that I could take whatever life might throw at me and probably won’t for at least another ten years.  Even then, it would be a very modest lifestyle.

I’ve also thought a lot about selling our primary residence and living rent free at our lake house.  With the money I’m making online, interest income I could generate, and maybe a part time job, I could get by.  But then there is the issue of what kind of life that would be for my daughter.  Is it selfish of me to drastically adjust our lifestyle and potentially rob my daughter of opportunities later as she struggles to figure out how to pay for college etc?  That doesn’t really feel right either.

So, here I sit.  Wondering what the best solution would be for my family.  Wondering if I’ll live a long life and all of the working and saving now will pay off later.  Wondering if I’ll kick the bucket much sooner and then regret not having ever taken a big chance on another way of life.

No matter what happens, I am grateful for the lifestyle and way of life my family has today.  Don’t get me wrong.  If nothing changed for the rest of my life, I’m still very, very grateful for being where we are at.  I just can’t help but wonder what else there might be…….