The Next 40 Years

Day 219 – one of my assignments for this week was to leaf through magazines for certain pictures reflecting things I want to do, alternate lives, dreams, in short, interesting and very interceptive. So for the first time since I came here I bought a magazine. I didn’t even know what’s in each one and they were all wrapped, so I just bought one (and found out it was not the best of choice) but I’ll try a different one next time. Still I found some cool pictures of places I want to visit and activities I want to do. But the interesting thing was an article about how long we live right now and the consequences of that. He writes that in prehistoric times people lived to be 20; later it was around 40 but now we have a good chance to pass 90. And since usually health declines only in the last few years, we have many healthy years ahead of us and that requires serious planning. He writes there that if he is 50 and unsatisfied with his marriage but has only 10 years to live – he’ll stick to it but if he knows that he has a good chance for 30-40 more years he should start a new chapter. Same thing for work we should start looking at it as career 1 and career 2; that women don’t have to be so stressed about having babies and a career since you can take 10 years off have the kids and come back to a long and prosperous career. Interesting – I never thought of it this way. I did think about staying for another 30-40 year in an unhappy marriage and came to the very same conclusion - to leave and maybe start over, but I didn’t think of other aspects of it as well. But I sure did have time to be home and be with my kids and now I have the time and energy to start a new career. And I am even thinking of having a startup at my age. But most of all,  it makes me happy to realize that probably I have many more years of good health and active life ahead of me and I should start planning. I want to take one vacation a year to go travel, not to be with my kids but to travel the world. I think my first trip will be around February as a birthday present. I will take a month off to travel. It can be so much fun!! I never did anything like that so this is really pushing my boundaries, just the way I like it. I am starting to plan my trip. I love the idea of long vacations, of a mini retirement; I just have to see that at my work place they will like it too. But I think that at least for this round it’ll be fine. I am doing the job of 3 people right now; I sure will need a vacation after that.
I am thankful for a very relaxing evening today; I didn’t feel so well and I stayed home this the evening and it was lovely.  I am thankful for reading this article confirming my ideas of how to live my life for the next 40 years or so. I am thankful and excited about this treat I decided to give myself for my birthday – a trip for a month somewhere. Now I just have to decided where I’m going.