we’re feeling a little dreamy and poetic today.
some days we just love checking our accounts, seeing the mortgage balance get lower while the savings balance gets higher. it’s amazing how, for a big dream like early retirement, we end up spending our time focused on things so undreamlike as numbers and spreadsheets and interest rates and inflation adjustments. that’s not what this is about.
this is about time. about having time to breathe. time to get enough sleep. time to lay in bed lazily in the morning, with no rush to get up. or to feel so inspired by something that we bound right out of bed, eager to get to it. time to get into passionate arguments. time to get outside and breathe the fresh air. time to reflect and dream and create. time to feel feelings fully. time to let go of frustration and focus on the positive. it’s never about tracking money for money’s sake.
time and travel are the only things that are truly worth the money. all the rest, all the stuff, is just disposable. the disposable stuff isn’t worth our life force, and it’s not worth yours. we all have only so much time, but with a little planning, we can buy it back, and make it our own, rather than trading it for money to buy things. we’ll take the time over the things any day.
even just dreaming about what our days might be like when we retire makes us happy. (you’ve heard that planning for vacation actually brings more relief from work than the vacation itself, right? even if we never reach our goal, we’ll be better off for having let ourselves dream.)
we’ll wake up on our own, with no alarm, when we feel rested.
we’ll take our time sipping morning coffee, engaging with each other instead of staring at screens.
we’ll happily get outside, taking a hike, a bike ride, a snowshoe walk or do something more adventurous like climb some rocks or go backcountry skiing.
we’ll have a leisurely lunch, where we’ll debate world events or throw out ideas for our next trip.
we’ll head into town, and visit some friends, stop by the library and pick up fresh veggies for dinner at the farmers market.
we’ll try some new recipes, cooking dinner together, and then ask the neighbors if they want to join us.
we’ll end the day with some quality time to read, write and reflect, and go to bed when it feels like the right time.
we’ll dream, and remember the dreams the next day, when we wake up rested, ready to start again.
what does your perfect dream day include?
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Categories: goals
I absolutely love everything about this! Thank you!
Awesome! Thanks, Kate! :-D
I love this post. It goes to show that perfect days do not require a ton of money. It’s the simple pleasures that make life great day-to-day.