people in our parents’ generation, when they hear about our plan, love to say, “but won’t you be bored? how will you spend your time?” this question undoubtedly comes from a place of love and concern, but the people who ask this clearly don’t know us very well. we are never lacking for things to do, and that’s why we want more time to do things that are priorities to us, and less time (or no time) to do things that are priorities to our employers.
here is the start of our life list for our next chapter, almost none of which cost very much:
- get punk rock haircuts
- have a jazz funeral for our careers in new orleans
- ride our bikes to the store instead of driving
- ski 100 days in a season
- improve our rock climbing skills, and maybe climb a big wall
- hike the john muir trail, and maybe the full pacific crest trail
- trek in the alps
- drive to the tip of south america
- spend a summer in alaska
- go to both weekends of coachella
- go to glastonbury
- go to central casting and get cast as extras
- preserve more of the food we get from the farmers market
- volunteer for a local csa, in exchange for produce
- visit all 50 u.s. states
- travel across asia
- learn more languages
- volunteer for local orgs
- be activists
- climb all the tall mountains in our state
- read more books
- finish proust
- sew more of our clothes
- have a garden
- make more time for yoga
- make more time for family
- see our friends more
- sleep in
- spend days away from screens
- camp for weeks at a time
- visit places threatened by climate change, before they’re gone
- have two-hour lunches
- ride trains all around the country
- downsize our home
- make things instead of buying them
-onl