Retiring at the Age of 40

I decided the other day that I’m going to retire at age 40. Why? Because I have a life that needs living in various different ways, and not just the career one.

More precisely, I want to start writing properly at 40. I’ve always written stuff, as far as I can remember, and some of it was even pretty good (I won the joint first prize in a Creative Writing competition ages ago). However, I haven’t done it in a long time, probably 6 years or more. I was simply too busy with my PhD, relationship, and earning money all at the same time.

Seeing that I’ve got the opportunity to really get stuck in professionally now - and I love my job - there’s no way I’m going to have time to do any writing or indeed anything that’s creative for the next few years either. OK, I do my blog, and playing around with widgets and such is a little bit ‘creative’, but it’s nothing at all compared to what I used to do (I used to be in a band, make music, write, even do a few performances with my then-boyfriend).

So, the best solution for me is to give it my all career-wise for the next 7 years (until I am 40) and see how far I can go, saving loads of money in the meantime. I’ll do my translation MA part-time (I’ve postponed the MA to next year BTW as I’m just too busy right now) to ensure that I have yet another profession that I can do from home (freelance translator), for when I retire. I mean, I’m not going to ‘retire’ and do fuck all. I do want to retire from the rat-race/my career at 40, and instead do some part-time jobs from home but mainly focus on my creative stuff, especially writing.

I’m looking forward to it - just 7 more years to go

edit: I LOVE my new map widget! I think a German company is behind clustr.