Warning, as if the title didn’t give it away, this one is a tad more philosophical than my typical blog entry. See, some time ago, I received sad, but not unexpected news. A former colleague had passed away following a long battle with a deadly disease. Besides the obvious sadness that comes when a husband and father that you know loses his life, it stung a little more since he had just retired, I believe in his mid to late 60’s, after battling this disease for years and was in relatively poor health with little to no time to enjoy his retirement. He was about as high up on the corporate ladder as one could possibly be and was making much more money than most of us. On top of having a healthy salary, as one of the most senior owners in the company, likely cashed out millions of dollars of stock when he finally called it quits.

His situation was quite different from mine. I made a typical mid-level engineer’s salary, which is obviously good, but with my wife staying home to homeschool our children and take care of the house until taking on a part-time Realtor gig in 2016, our combined income was pretty average. Although I bought company stock when given the option, I never owned anywhere near a million dollars of any stock! My savings was built through sweat equity in real estate, total stock market index investing, and frugal living; not late nights at the office and climbing the corporate ladder. The moment I hit my retirement number, I bailed from the full-time rat race. I wanted to focus on family before my kids moved out, and wanted nothing more than to make my own schedule.

So why did I retire at 50, but he kept going, almost until his final days? Why did he continue working for so long, knowing his time may have been coming? Why not retire and enjoy the money you’ve earned with your family and loved ones? In that moment, I wished he had retired years ago, for nothing else than to know what that freedom felt like. Frankly, I thought he was straight up crazy for even considering sticking around, even for one single day after receiving his diagnosis years ago. I wondered what the hell good were all those late nights at the office and all the money he had made. Why didn’t he just say, “ya know, I’ve had enough”?

While I didn’t know his family at all, I also couldn’t help but wonder about their perspective. Did they care at all about the money left behind, or were their thoughts more like mine, wishing he had said enough’s enough long ago? Were they also left wondering about what might have been if he left work 10 or 15 or even 20 years earlier? Would his health had never taken a turn for the worse? Maybe he would have taken up fitness or sports in his spare time. Were they harboring any resentment that after the many years of his career being his mistress, they missed out on the opportunity to enjoy some extended quality time together? I’ll never know. But you know what? That doesn’t matter!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized maybe this was his one true passion, and the main thing he felt gave his life meaning. I started to feel a bit guilty for questioning why he stayed at work instead of retiring at the moment he had enough money to do so. Thinking about it, I figured that he was about 15 years my senior. Surely the first 50 years of his life were much different than mine, and then I couldn’t imagine what he might have experienced and learned another 15 years into the future from where I am today! Who knows why anyone takes their life in a direction or what their family may think. Just because I wouldn’t do it, doesn’t make it right or wrong. It just is. I’m sure health care and the high costs of treatment weighed on his mind too. As Dale Carnegie explained in “How To Win Friends and Influence People”, you have to assume everyone is doing the best they can with the information and experiences that they have. And experience is one thing for sure this guy had over me!

Maybe all he ever wanted out of life was to build a successful business, add staff, and help them realize the same satisfaction that he felt. Maybe he considered retiring earlier many times, but decided against it with the blessings of those closest to him. Maybe, like a few couples I’m friends with, he and the Mrs decided continuing work was the best thing for their relationship! It’s also possible that an early retirement may have robbed him of his greatest joy and spiraled him into a depression marked by empty Tastykake wrappers and pizza boxes around the living room TV. Just because my experiences had led me to believe that was a crazy path that should never be traveled, didn’t make it a biblical verse.

Whew! After coming to grips with these prospects, yeah… I realized that just maybe, as crazy as it may seem to me, that this was what my former colleague felt gave meaning to his life. Maybe, unlike myself, he drew the greatest thrill from attacking new problems that only his business provided. Maybe he relished those stressful calls and the most complex challenges, and felt that challenges without your feet to the fire weren’t challenges at all. I’ll admit, sometimes I remember those times fondly and also remember how highly rewarding it is to be that person that solved the seemingly impossible! But for me, to have to take that together with the 50+ hour per week requirement didn’t work. But again, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT I THINK!

I think (not that it matters obviously :D) of life as a trail with a nearly infinite number of forks. At each fork, we choose the direction we want to walk on, and we each do our best to find our own best path in life. I chose my paths because they made the most sense for me at the time and I thought they would bring me and others close to me the most happiness. Sometimes, you’ll find that a fork in the road that you followed may not work, so you either try to turn around or keep moving again until you can try a different path. Sometimes, you can’t find that fork you wanted to take before, but find another that might work even better. My chosen forks led me to an early retirement, but I realize that’s not everyone’s preferred path. Frankly, it was a path wrought with a lot of hard work, a lot of risk, and often settling for “less than” what many of my coworkers and friends had.

Some people, like my former colleague, are at their happiest when they’re stressing out over work and then being the one that solved a seemingly impossible issue. For those, maybe the financial rewards are the big prize while for others the work and satisfaction that comes with creative results might be the primary driving force; most often, it’s probably somewhere in the middle. They know that their abilities are very unique and they enjoy having others look up to them as “The Man” (or Woman!) and realize they’ll be well paid for those creative solutions. During the first few years of my career, I was definitely of this mindset. I wanted to be The Man; the one that came up with the best solution that the upper managers thought was great, and I knew a higher salary would follow. I didn’t mind most of the time that my day began at 6 AM and I didn’t eat dinner until 7 PM, sometimes closer to 9. The fancy car and new house along with the ability to buy pretty much whatever toy we wanted was the icing on the cake. This changed quite a bit when I was laid off in the middle of planning for our wedding with our first child on the way, but for a while, it worked for me! And I chose that path because of my experiences and resulting mindset.

I feel like most people fall into a second group; they may not enjoy their job as much as that first group, but enjoy it enough to be perfectly happy working 40 or 50 hours per week until a typical retirement age, so long as it affords them the opportunity to pay the bills and swing a vacation or fancy toy once in a while. Here again, you’ll see two types of people and many shades of gray in between. Some may settle into this arrangement because they can buy up the latest doo-dads or eat at any restaurant that strikes their fancy while others may find solace in the safety and security that comes with working for a good company with a steady paycheck and having a regular routine. Routine is comfortable, which makes it easy to like!

I became someone that fell into a third group of people. Maybe some of us liked our jobs and some didn’t, but regardless, the common thread was an overwhelming desire to leave full-time work because of how little free time you’re left with after a regular work-week, commuting, and other work related stresses. The idea of living life by the rules and schedule of others seemed (and still seems) completely silly to me, and I needed out. I may have started my career as a gung-ho career guy, but once I got laid off from that first good job where I was all in, I started questioning the point of earning money just to burn it away on stuff or to pay service workers so my life can be “easier”. Once I had children, these feelings were further compounded by the nagging feeling I needed to provide more than just an income to my family; I needed to be a Dad. I was now responsible for life that I helped bring into this world, and I owed it to my kids to give them what they needed to develop into healthy, happy adults. That meant giving them the one commodity I couldn’t go to the store to buy more of; my time. I certainly couldn’t give them enough time if I was spending 65 hours a week at the office plus another 10 hours commuting. I said no to new projects if I didn’t have the time to fit it in a standard 40-45 hour workweek (which I know pissed off more than one supervisor in my time 😉 ), and I was happy to stay in my role without being promoted as long as the company management would let me stay there. Instead of worrying about raises and promotions, I committed to a more frugal lifestyle and refocused my goals on figuring out how to retire early and be home for my kids.

That’s what worked for me, but obviously the recent passing of my former colleague made it very clear (as if I didn’t realize it already!) that it doesn’t work for everyone! For those out there that share my feelings and want to leave the rat race, those people are the reason I started writing a blog. Because for every gung-ho Type-A company guy or every content mid-level worker, there’s someone that’s frustrated because they feel like they have to work to pay the bills and they don’t give a flying rat’s ass about making more money or climbing the corporate ladder. They just want to be free from corporate shackles, golden handcuffs, or whatever the hell you wanna call them. Some of them want time for family or to pursue passions that may not pay much (if any) money or to travel the world. Whatever the reason, I’m sharing my story to prove it is possible.

For those in the world that love their work above all else and want to keep going at it until their last days, my hat’s off to you! You’re the folks that keep the corporate world going around, keep those cool gadgets on the shelf, figure out unique ways to add value, and keep stock prices on the rise so folks like me can retire.

Best of luck to each of you as you search for your happiness and meaning in life.