Are we crazy and too young to do this?

I read a blog recently by Freely Living Life on the topic How young is too young? It was an interesting take on why some people found it difficult to accept “younger” people engaging in what some think are things reserved for “older” “well to do” people. The belief is that in order to qualify for full timing as a lifestyle one had to be older, retired, and fairly well off financially… Their blog set about blasting this ideology and was followed with many comments that supported their thesis… I thought I would add my two cents in the form of a story instead of comments…

When we first decided that we were going to fulltime we did so sort of spontaneously but, we didn’t just stop everything and just do it! I had long planned the day we would “retire” and had picked the ripe “old” age of 55 to do so. I invested wisely and lived frugally so I could be come FIRE’d (financially independent - retired early) as was suggested on a forum I frequent (http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/). Here was a site that brought together similar people with the desire to get out of the rat race as early as possible. No one asked anyone how old they were or how well off they were but many offered their ages and finances anyhow. Thus, over time I learned to know who some of these people were through their avatars and came to discover that they were of all ages and of all economic classes. So to say one had to be old to retire was definitely not true and to say one had to be wealthy was also not true. Now I admit both of these topics are highly subjective.

When we celebrated our first wedding anniversary many years ago were we really any different then than we are now? Now even though we have made the decision to “retire” many years later we never made the decision that this meant we would never work again. Thus, retirement is may not be what we have actually chosen… it may merely be a form of living life fully…

Many years after our first wedding anniversary we have made the decision to fully live life… Are we smarter now than when we very young? Maybe, but inside we are still the same two people we were back then just with a little wisdom thrown in.. But even as we shared our plans with our friends and acquaintances we discovered similarities with what many other bloggers said they experienced. Were we crazy!!! Most focused on age… how could we do this at the age of fifty five which is really an indirect way of saying how can you afford to do so? This was pointed out in the blog How young is too young? when they said “…do not judge a person based on their age for you do not know what path they have already walked in life. This goes both ways.” and I might add the old adage…Don’t judge a book by it cover…

Many have commented that life is too short and that to let it pass you by without living it fully was the mistake many make… to wait for the big pension or the appropriate nest egg would likely cause one to just end up not “retiring” at all... Yes we do only have one shot at this and as The Gypsy G-Mas said in their comment... “There are so many people who don't follow their dreams because they believe they have to reach some magical age. By the time that age arrives they are no longer able to achieve those dreams or they have lost track of what those dreams are.”  I couldn’t agree with this statement more…

There are many out there that think we have lost our minds, that we will run out of money, that we have gone stark raving crazy and are madly insane… well all I really have to say to them is that I am going to give this a go and to not do so would leave me with lots of regrets…

live life fully…