Congratulations on retiring to a life of doing what you want.

@Jacob: I think that philanthropy helps fill time. You can begin a charitable foundation. I think there is a paucity of charitable foundations to help middle class people that go through temporary crises. But, that is my opinion. There are few to help victims of ID theft. You like the environment. You can become a patron of a scientist. Pick a local one, perhaps. Or, let people apply.

I am not retired yet. I would have been if I hadn’t been a victim of ID theft and robbery and mail theft. I had to start over about 10 years ago. That’s hard to do. But, I keep going. I wish I could retire because I plan to start a foundation then when I have time. I am working all my free time toward that now.

Good luck to you and thank you for being a great role model to those of us hoping to follow suit.

J

When I retired at 55, I wasn’t ready for the rocking chair just yet. Some people think that I have pulled up short and that I should still be a full-time member of the rat race. They are generally still employed full-timers and can not relate to anything less than a full-time commitment. All that I can say to them is that in my 58 years, I’ve been around the track more times than most people have in a life time. Those people who are most critical of me have lived in their comfort zone all of their adult lives and have rarely ventured out without their security blanket. I have a great deal of dislike for people who are threatened by my risk taking lifestyle. Unfortunately, my desire to reinvent myself places me in situations where I have to humble myself to these narrow minded individuals. These specialists in what ever it is they did for 35 years or more are out of tune with the rest of the world and fear the unfamiliar. However, they are my supervisors and I either play their game or quit. Reluctantly, I play their game.

After I retired three years ago, I moved to rural County in California. The fantasy of living in the forest was what got me through those times where I just wanted to take this job and shove it. My life has been filled with taking a lot of risks along the way. I attribute my ability to retire early to risk taking. After all, the bigger the risk the greater the reward. The risk taking has definitely taken it’s toll on my body and mind. Fortunately, I have been blessed with the ability to focus on what I have going for me, not my shortcomings. For example, I can no longer participate in my passion of running, due to a work related injury, but I can certainly hike a
trail to my hearts content. My wife and I hike daily for exercise and peace of mind. This is just one of many examples of how I ended up with lemons and made lemonade out of them.

When I retired at 55 I was financially able to do what ever I wanted without the worry of how much I got paid. Over my career, I discovered that the more money you made the more stressful your job was. Ergo, it would appear to be true that low paying and even volunteer positions would be less stressful and therefore more enjoyable. Because of that, I believed that I should have no trouble finding the brass ring that had eluded me my whole adult life. As it turned out, I was in for a big surprise. Soon after I moved up here reality set in. I struggled greatly with becoming a Private Investigator due to my lack of experience as a small business owner. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I then took on a seasonal job with the Forest Service last summer. In spite of accepting this low paying job, the demands were very high and I learned what the term “Seasonal Employee Abuse” was all about. I was assigned the crappy jobs that they didn’t want to do and worked the shifts they didn’t want to work. In addition, I was never allowed into their “inner circle”. Oh well, needless to say, I didn’t return this summer.

So much for the blunt introduction. This brings me to my volunteer fire fighter position at Station 123. I’m not going to get into how I became a volunteer fire fighter, because that’s not important. I have learned a lot over the past 4 months. Actually much more than I ever expected in such a short amount of time. I have come to understand that rural areas are hard pressed for alternatives, so they just have to make due with whoever is available. That means that marginally qualified personnel, like myself, are expected to do things that are generally learned in programs that involve a long and disciplined training curriculum. In many ways, the training program here can best be described as putting the cart before the horse. Many tasks that I am expected to do, after seeing it done only a couple of times, are later taught in an abbreviated crash course. I still haven’t been through the “67 class” (fire fighting class) and I’ve been on three wild land fires and one structure fire.

Life at Satation123 has had it’s ups and downs. My Captain, an ex-college professor who started out as a volunteer fire fighter at the age of 16 is, shall I say, a f***ing-know-it-all. He is a 64 year old man who is a legend in his own mind. He refuses to play second fiddle to anyone and being the first on scene is more important than anything else. It’s really not about helping someone who is in immediate need as much as it is beating the other units there so that he can have bragging rights. His method of instructing his trainees is to ridicule them in a condescending tone and finding fault with nearly everything they do. The last time that I dealt with that kind of person was in boot camp. I’m sure that you are asking yourself why I didn’t just walk away from that kind of abuse. Well, I have to admit, I have learned more in four months from that Man than what most people learn in a long structured classroom setting. I’m sure that the skills that I have learned from him will someday save my life or help me save the life of someone else. For that I will always be thankful to him, in spite of my dislike for his poor social interaction skills.

In conclusion, I have noticed that my self-confidence has grown in my abilities and that I am standing up to his sarcasm more often. Surprisingly, when I stand up to him, he rapidly backs off and his snide demeanor goes away. Somehow, I see myself like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ, discovering that the Wizard is really this insecure old man behind this curtain who is on this power trip in order to deal with issues of his own.

Welcome Baby Boomers to the finish line of the rat race. There’s a gut check coming up and by the way, welcome to OZ.

@Sylvia – Hmm, I don’t know what the classification scheme is or if there is an exact one. I would say below 40 is “extremely early”. That’s my cut-off. I don’t think 45 is extreme for instance. Most magazine articles talking around “early” retirement interview people below 50. I have also seen people at 55 talking about early retirement. The tax advantaged pension plans are released [in the US] at 59.5, so maybe that should be considered standard. Anything over would be late retirement.

@P – Nah, I think it’s very possible to have extrovert activities that don’t cost a fortune. The problem here though would be finding people that don’t spend all day working. Volunteering is a big hit here. As is all those light duty works … like part time camp ground maintenance. We have groups around here that play golf at 8a in the morning. Crazy people!

Otherwise, I might die of boredom.

Cheers