This week we continue our adventures towards early retirement, thinking about the daily stressors in our lives, the challenges and benefits of minimalism and we take time to examine some Stoic wisdom.
Work life & subliminal stress.
This week has seen one of the final pieces of the jigsaw of our early retirement plans dropping into place. My successor at work has been appointed and I now officially have no job or career in September- a scary but liberating realisation!
I was fortunate enough to be directly involved in the recruitment and selection process for my successor. I thoroughly enjoyed and valued the experience, but a particular aspect of the process surprised me- something that I can only describe as subliminal stress.
In my own head, I was thoroughly together with the whole concept of moving on, but subconsciously I clearly had some deeper feelings about this significant milestone. During the selection process, I exhibited all the classic symptoms of stress in what I felt was a non-stressful environment- sleepless nights, restlessness, racing heart beat, worry, mild nausea, etc. The rational part of my brain could not make sense of these very real, stress related physical changes. On reflection, I guess that even in the most apparently stress free situations, our deep rooted and subconscious perceptions have such a hold and influence of our emotional responses.
Stress is all around us in our lives and it ebbs and flows like the tide. Like the tide, we need to accept that it is ever present- to think that we will get to a point where stress disappears from our lives is rather naive. Stress points arise in our lives, and then dissipate, only to be replaced by other moments of stress . I firmly feel that coming to terms with this ever presence of stress is the first step in being able to deal with the challenges of life.
Practical minimalism & mindfulness.
I accidentally stumbled into an enlightening moment earlier in the week.
As part of clearing the house of clutter ready for selling, we are working towards true minimalism, holding onto only the things that bring us real joy and clearing out the clutter. We found a storage crate of files under our bed that had been there for years! I vaguely recall putting it there many years ago when I had the fear that “I just might need that” in the future.
When I took time to thumb through the documents, I realised just how far I have come in my understanding of what is really important in life. Through trauma, my understanding of the impermanence of life- that life is ever changing- could not be better illustrated by these documents I found. Once prized documents, that were such key priorities for my life and work were now obsolete. Appraisal documents, professional development records and presentations that I had devoted so much of my working life to produce were now absolutely meaningless to me. Things that once held so much value to me were exposed for what they really are- just things- and they needed to be discarded with no regrets.
Over the past couple of years I have been working really hard on personal development strategies to moderate my stress and anxiety levels. One such strategy when I am anxious about a particular issue is is the 10-10-10 reflection- to ask myself the question:
How important will this issue be in 10 weeks, 10 months or 10 years?
These documents that I prized so highly seemed at the time to be at the centre of my universe. Yet in reality, they may have remained important after 10 weeks, but after 10 months? Probably not. After 10 years? Absolutely not. If only I could have had this insight at the time, I think it would have kept me in a much happier and more content place during my working life.
Longer term travel plans
Our plans for our Arran Easter trip are pretty much finalised, but we have spent a lot of our time this week looking at the challenges of our future long term travel in Europe and how it will pan-out when we no longer have the time commitments of work.
The biggest single issue by far that we will have to face is the 90 day limitation of traveling in the EU. Put simply, we are only allowed to travel for 90 days in the EU as UK citizens, before we then need to spend 90 days out of the EU zone. Oh the benefits of Brexit!?!? This 180 day cycle is strictly monitored by EU border control and is a mathematical nightmare for people like us that want to travel for more extended periods of time.
Our initial thoughts to maximise our potential annual adventures are roughly:
Dec/Jan/Feb- EU to get the best skiing/winter sun options
Mar/Apr/May- UK/Ireland road trips to discover our homeland
Jun/Jul/Aug- EU summer adventures
Sep/Oct/Nov- UK adventures and time at home to consolidate and plan
These restrictions are going to put an additional layer of complexity into our planning, but are certainly not going to limit the adventures that we are going to have. We have always said of our travel adventures that part of the fun is in the planning and research for our trips, as well as the actual trip itself.
Stoic reflections
One of my daily comforts of this year has been working through the Daily Stoic Journal (Ryan Holiday), taking a moment each day to pause and reflect on the bigger things in life. One of the questions of the day this week was:
Would I feel wealthier if I decreased my wants?
This returned my thoughts again to the concept of minimalism. As we look forward to a simpler life together, as a couple we have naturally found ourselves wishing for less. The knock on effect of this is to feel a greater gratitude for what we have already got, rather than hopefully looking forward to potential treats in the future.
Without us knowing, this simple mindset shift has better enabled us to live each day much more in the present as we move towards our early retirement. Not having a definitive concrete plan is fine, it's all part of the process of us letting go and shifting our mindset to a more simple life.
This week has been somewhat of a milestone in our early retirement planning, and in some respects we are relived that it is over. We look forward to our Easter adventures in Arran, with the excitement continuing to build next week. Our minimising continues with avengeance, clearing our minds and our house of clutter in preparations for our next steps. There is so much to do, but we are determined to remain calm, as these minor issues of the moment will fade into insignificance in the next 10 weeks, 10 months and 10 years.
Have a fantastic week,
Richard & Jackie
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