Why do we make decisions with the belief that we will live forever? We put things off ‘until retirement’ or ‘until the kids get older’ or ‘when I feel I will have more time’. I hate to break this to you but none of us are going to live forever, and we will never have enough time.
We all need to realise that it’s about not making excuses for ‘when things are ……’ (insert what you need to here) it’s about making decisions for us now. It’s not even about taking a risk because usually there are no risks, it’s just bloody scary to do something that people may not approve of, but hey, who cares?! This is your life!
My GG and I had a farm and an investment property, we sold the farm and moved into the investment property at Wauchope and after paying off the mortgage of the farm we had some money left over, now the sensible and practical thing to do would be put all that extra money onto the Wauchope property and reduce our debt. I sat down with GG and said ‘we may never have this opportunity again, who knows how long we will live for, let’s travel overseas and see as much as we can’ – he agreed. We did an 8 week trip through Great Britain, Ireland and Europe and our sons’ 15th birthday present was going to Pompeii. We have kissed the Blarney Stone, been to the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, the Vatican, Florence, Venice, Greece, Armsterdam, Germany to name a few and we have seen SO much – it was exhausting but to this day, ten years later we don’t regret spending over $30,000 on that trip. And you know what? We have NEVER been in a place where we have been able to do it since. Sure, it has set us back financially but in the scheme of things, we just don’t care. The experience was worth it, we did that trip without having to borrow money and as I said, we have never been in that position again.
By telling you that story, I don’t mean to brag, because I’m not, my point is we did it. We didn’t do that ‘practical’ thing that everyone would advise you to do and leave it ‘until retirement’ because so many of us aren’t going to make it there.
I know it’s difficult to do, to just take that leap of faith and do the study that you’ve always wanted to do, but if you don’t do it now, then when? Will you really do it in retirement or when the kids are older or will something else crop up that you will then have to put it off again?
Want to travel around Australia in a caravan? Then start planning, set the date that you’re going to do it, speak to your boss about a leave of absence for a year, get the caravan, put your furniture in storage and rent the house out – even if the planning takes a couple of years – take the kids, they’ll learn so much more actually seeing the places and visiting them then reading about them in a book. Look into actually how you can make it work and you’ll find a way, trust me, you will if you really want to.
Get out there and live the life that you want to live not the life that everyone expects you to live and be happy with your decisions, don’t live a life of regret wishing you had done things that you just never got around to.
Be happy.