Throughout your lifetime, you’ve got to stop doing some things in order to have new beginnings. It’s a sign of maturity. At the very least, it’ll keep life fresh and interesting. On a serious note, the ability to adapt to the changing environment keeps you on the right side of natural selection. Nowadays, instead of worrying about things ending, I focus on how I can reinvent myself.
Imagine if a fully-grown butterfly could return to a cocoon and reemerge a different butterfly. One capable of occupying a different niche within the overall ecosystem. Wouldn’t that be grand? At least for that butterfly?
That’s what we humans, if we’re not so stubborn, can do. Granted, the older I get, the better I get at being stubborn. Yet, that doesn’t mean I won’t change my ways in order to preserve my life and forge a new way of life.
All around me, people are being priced out of their apartments and homes because the cost of living has exceeded income. A wise woman once told me, back when I thought I’d retire as a science teacher, that the only way to make money was to be an entrepreneur. I politely nodded and smiled respectfully, thinking I’d never have to heed those sage words. After all, I had a Masters in Education and lots of teaching experience. I could get a teaching job anywhere in the world.
After several professional reinventions, where I’ve enclosed myself within a new cocoon of knowledge to learn different skill sets, I’ve come closer to being an entrepreneur. Suddenly, my favorite number is 1099 and I’ve discovered that one path to happiness is setting my own schedule. I’m not merely talking about which days of the week I’ll work nor how many hours during the day, but even down to the micromanagement of my time such as no middle management asshole dictating when, how long and how often I use the bathroom.
I can eat when I want. Run errands when I need to. Go to yoga in the middle of the day. And since I work from home, pajamas are my work clothes. Commuting consists of walking from one part of my apartment to the other. And if I ever think, in the middle of the work day, “I could use a drink….” (heeeeeey), I pour myself a drink.
See how I’ve embraced this new reinvention of my life? I cannot believe I dwelled in employee-dom for so long. Granted, I may not ever be able to retire, but the whole retirement thing was really a contemporary social experiment to ease older employees out of the workforce, so younger ones could enter.
In the past versions of civilization, people worked until they died. They may have slowed down along the way, but there was no such thing as a retirement package other than the expectation that the younger generation of relatives, usually adult children, would take care of them. So, instead of dwelling on the fact that we’re living through the last vestige of retirement as we know it, I’ve embraced a far less stressful working lifestyle and no longer worry about work/life balance.
Of course, there are some limitations to this path I’ve forged. Our alleged developed country does not have universal healthcare, so I have to pay for that myself. I no longer get paid sick nor vacation leave. Honestly, there was only one time in my life I actually needed my sick leave and all the other times I used it to do other things because I was well. My habit is to live below my means and save money, so when I do take some days off, I’ll still be able to pay for everything.
At the same time, I know there’s a work lifestyle where I don’t have to trade hours of my time for money. I can still get paid even when I’m not technically at work. It’s called residual income. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a part of heaven on earth that I need to incorporate into my work life.
I feel another metamorphosis coming.