Valuation choices

Retiring early or retiring late is actually a question of values.

If you think it is important to start a happy life early, and living in a villa, driving a luxury car, and eating delicious food are not so important now, then you can choose to retire early.

If you feel that you really cannot sacrifice this kind of good food, instant travel, mansions and luxury cars, then there is no way to retire early. Of course, not everyone wants to retire early, right?

We can choose to retire early, then we will save a little now. We can also choose to be more relaxed and not think about anything, then we may never be able to leave work. In the end, what we choose is our own business, and no one can help us.

01 Rank desires

As practitioners of life cultivation, we sometimes get together and talk about our life plan and early retirement. We talk at random and we seem to come up with different ideas with no decision made. We then realize that we have often been at odds with each other because we were not on the same channel. On this matter, no one has thought it through. Let us try now.

In the meeting, a friend will say he wants to make a plan for early retirement because he is sick and tired of the rat race, but at the same time he refuses to give up what he is doing now. For him, traveling should go on as usual. The housing mortgage should be paid as usual, and he is thinking about exchanging his house for a better area. The education of the children cannot be spared because he wants them to have a competitive edge when they venture into society in the future. He also wants to trade up on his car. In the end, he still insists that he wants to make an early retirement plan.

On the other hand, let us consider the proposed lifestyles of the minimalists. Then we discover the truth. If we have limited resources, then we have to make sacrifices. We have hard choices to make.

We are free to choose any lifestyle, but if we want to pursue early retirement, we should sit down and prioritize our desires and see clearly what is most important to us.

First, let us choose between (1) early retirement, and (2) continuous upgrading of good cars and houses, as well as a luxurious overseas trip once a year at a young age, and more.

We now must sort to balance the relationship between the present and the future.

02 The abyss

People who really want to retire early often do things very poorly. One boasted that he learned how to get a haircut today and how much money he saved. Another said that he made a nutritious meal himself, fried rice with onions and mushrooms, and how much money he saved.

Come on, do you really believe that these actions will lead to early retirement? We think those people are pushing themselves into the abyss of never retiring.

Many people want to say goodbye to their professional life because they want to be freed from the frustration of working to pay off various bills. They just don’t want to work in that line anymore.

We think they are barking up the wrong tree. They should not try to fix their professional life. They should try to fix the various bills that they have to pay. Look at those bills and cut down those unnecessary expenses.

Read more: The Walden Pond

03 The easy solutions

For some people, early retirement usually means doing something more meaningful to them than working, such as raising children, saving the world, rock climbing, making art, compiling open source programs, writing, etc. It is difficult for them to make a living from these activities. It does not mean that they plan to do nothing.

Again, they are putting the cart before the horses. What they should do is not plan for early retirement, but how to monetize the activities into a stream of income.

Read more: this website https://mustang.press

04 A brief summary

If you plan for early retirement, ask yourself a simple question.

Why do I want an early retirement?

The answer may be one of the following.

My present job is ruining my health. I do not feel like going to work. In this case, you definitely have to retire if you want to live longer and happier.

My present job is alright, but I want to be able to control my time so that I can take care of other activities. In this case, talk to your employer and change your job into a free-lance form with a different schedule and different pay scales.

There are different solutions for different situations. Read on for more solutions.

End of part six of the series of posts on early retirement. Read more on our website: https://mustang.press

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