A Cautionary Word on the Deferred Life Plan

I have a client, nice old lady, a widow, in her 70's and while working on her computer she started talking about her life and times. She warned me about working too much and told me her tale of woe.<p>She and her husband worked all their lives, raised a family and saved their money. Their plan was to retire early at 55-60 and then travel the world once kids were grown. All was going according to plan and they both retired but then her husband got colon cancer and died 6 months after he retired before they took a single trip.<p>She wasn't bitter but clearly regretted deferring life for work, and she did not want me to make the same mistake. After her husband died she tried to travel but said it was just too difficult to carry on without her husband. Sad to see her living with a broken heart.

I took an investment banking job right out of college and spent the next few years working like crazy. It was good work experience - and a great chance to save money - but it was exhausting work that I wasn't passionate about. My close friends and family lived in different cities, and I saw them only a few times a year. Some of my colleagues planned on working 80-hour weeks for 15 years and retiring at 40, but I wasn't interested in that plan.<p>So after 2.5 years, I quit to start my own business. I'm pretty tech savvy, but have nowhere near the programming skills as many here on HN. I am, however, a good marketer so I started an eCommerce drop shipping business. Within a year, I was making an income that could support my family - within two years, a good income. And I also had the ability to work wherever - and whenever - I wanted. I'd work like crazy for a few months on a business project I was really interested in, get a ton done and then take a few months off to travel. It was the best of both worlds: I'd be super productive when I was interested and had the energy, and take time off when I needed it. Best of all, I saw the people I cared about much more frequently.<p>With the dawn of the internet, there's never been a better time in history to start your own business (low risk, high reward, global scope), especially if you're technically minded. We have the unique opportunity to do work we love while being able to maintain a health work/life balance. It's amazing.<p>If anyone's interested in the full story of how I made the leap from corporate workaholic to a more balanced life, I've written about it below:<p><a href="http://www.ecommercefuel.com/my-corporate-escape-story/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ecommercefuel.com/my-corporate-escape-story/</a>

It's very easy for a wealthy VC to sit on a stage and pontificate like this.<p>Not everyone has opportunities in front of them to work on a project they believe in and make enough money to pay the bills with it.<p>Most of us have to struggle through years of working at jobs that hopefully use our skills well, putting in time on nights and weekends pursuing something we do believe in and feel passionately about.<p>Our passion projects go through half-starts, frustrations, and down blind alleys; sometimes having to battle against our own pessimism, peer pressure, time demands, and the sense that everyone else is doing it better, and more easily. (The truth is it's not coming more easily to everyone else, but it's human nature to see things that way.)<p>If we're lucky, we get it right, and maybe that personal project gets a foothold (fuck "traction," it's hard enough to get a toehold at the beginning). For a few, there's a chance to even quit that job that's making you prematurely old and finally do just what you want. For many people, that doesn't happen for years and years, if it happens at all, and there ought to be a medal for anyone who can simply stay motivated and persistent for that long, whatever comes of it.<p>And in all of this, I'm still talking about a small subset of the American public, and an even smaller subset of the world. We're talking about some of the luckiest people on the planet—those of us who can even consider things like "life plans" because the circumstances of our lives have landed us so far up Maslow's pyramid. If you're working at a job that you don't care about, where your manager is a capricious idiot, the office is ugly and the coffee sucks, but you're at least using your skills, you're already in a position that 95% of the world would love to trade places with right now.<p>Don't let a billionaire with perfect 20/20 hindsight tell you you're doing it wrong. If you have to spend part of your life with your excitement and enthusiasm deferred because that's what it takes, don't pile on your own troubles by telling yourself that you're "deferring life." Life is one long journey of ups and downs, discovery, pain, joy, frustration, accomplishment, and every other damn thing. Take it as it comes, meet it with your head up, and when you have to slog through the bullshit, slog through it. Just because your passion might flag for a bit doesn't mean it's not going to rise again, and just because you have to "sell a product you don't believe in" doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

I think the key is to wait for a local maxima in savings and employability before you take off on your big "deferred life" trip.<p>The trade-off is always portrayed as between ending up an unemployable 22-year-old with $10,000 in credit card debt, or a 70 year old widower who tried to put it off until after kids but missed the window.<p>But there's a middle road.<p>I, for instance, saved like crazy until I was 27 before taking off on the first big trip. By then I'd established enough of a professional reputation that I could quickly find a job when I got back, and enough savings to not worry about going broke on the road. Over the next 13 years I averaged about six months off every year, getting more employable at every step and usually ending each year with more savings than the last.<p>I don't think there would have been any chance of pulling that off had I started off by maxing the credit card on a gap year trip straight out of school.

I don't know why but it's always hard for me to accept that kind of advice from rich people. People for whom money is not an issue and can basically live a life of luxury without working.<p>I'm not saying the advice isn't sound advice. Just that doing more of what you love Or want to do is far easier for them therefore it's easier for them to say it

If you have ever encountered "lifers" people who have worked their entire lives in a single job of little importance then you will realise this is great advice. I have personally made a commitment to never let comfort and fear prevent me from living life with passion.

The way I see it, you've got three chunks of time in any work day. 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours of whatever you like.<p>Now, other things do eat into the last block, like travel and washing the dishes. But you still wind up with a healthy chunk of time every day, and <i>that</i> is where Life happens. So, make of it what you will.

I read The Millionaire Fastlane recently, and it was fantastic. The author talks at length about the potential folly of saving your whole life in order to have fun at the end. Who knows how long you will be around or what your health will be like when you finally "retire"? The book has lots of great insights and strategies for the startup crowd. There's a Mixergy interview with the author available here: <a href="http://mixergy.com/mj-demarco-limos-interview/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/mj-demarco-limos-interview/</a><p>Book link: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Wealth-Lifetime/dp/0984358102" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Wealth-Lifeti...</a>

Lately I've been thinking on traveling around the world for a year after college (so late this year). I haven't thought it out yet, but it seems possible to have enough savings for about two months of life (for contingency) and then freelancing remotely two or three days a week to support myself for the year.<p>At least I think it should be possible for a 25 year old to travel the world on 2k euro a month ...<p>Anyone ever done something like that?

I'd love to hear more information about how to pick a decent niche. There's always some vague mention of "research" but really, what is this - what's involved. Surely you need an idea of what to do BEFORE you research it?!

Watch later: <a href="http://bit.ly/LTsuUY" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/LTsuUY</a>

I took 18 months off work to follow my dreams. I tried to strike it rich, but I got experience instead. It was quite the roller coaster ride. In America, if you are not working a job and receiving a salary, you are seen as a leech, a useless appendage and worthless drain on society. Women don't want to date you, parents always asking when are you getting a job, you have to put up with the revulsion at parties when you have to admit you are not drawing a salary... And you have to take it easy on the expenses. But it was a great decision, and I'll do it again soon when I get another nest egg saved up. You gotta have nerves of steel and be able to tell the others to keep following your dreams of the deferred life plan, and call me in 2060 when that pans out.<p>If I don't spend the money I earn on myself, then the government will just take it away from me in the next 10 years through 10%-20% annual inflation as it tries to pay down umpteen trillion dollars in socialism. You can't plunder the value behind my bank account dollars if I don't have any to take! When the new currency comes down the pike, I'll work my butt off at age 65 and 75 to earn a 350 thousand dollar/year salary working food service.