A Quarter Century Looming...
With my 25th birthday fast approaching (tomorrow), I have been thinking more and more about life lately. About a year ago I took a job in finance as a stopgap because I was sick of looking for teaching jobs and needed to earn a little bit of money. I was with the "Office Space"-like company LPL for 3 months before I started with my current company. While I have always pictured myself working for a company just like this: top of a high rise in a modern downtown, crunching numbers and talking about investing. However, I never really pictured myself being a processor, I only saw myself being in an office solving problems and coming up with ideas. So now that I'm nearly 25, I feel like I am no longer "still young" and that I need to be taking a step forward if I am to ever reach the point I feel I should be at.
If I had grown up in the 1950s, I'd be a junior executive living in a 3-bedroom house with a homemaker wife and a kid or two already. I'd also be making enough money to support that lifestyle. Instead, I was born in 1981 into a changing society, women (and minorities) have doubled the size of the workforce while the path to becoming an executive has become much longer and more difficult. But then again, so has the path to starting a family. I'm 25 now (well...not yet) and I'm still at least a couple of years away from starting a family. My problem is that I always look at things way down the line. When I make a choice, I think to myself "how will this affect my retirement?" instead of "how will this affect me?". I am so concerned with having a long retirement where I could make my own choices and live by my standards that I sacrifice my current happiness in exchange for the chance that I'll move up just that much faster and inch that much closer to retirement. If I could retire tomorrow, I would.
So what would I do if I retired tomorrow? First, I would use my wealth and time to make a difference, rather than wasting away in an office processing financial documents. Second, I would travel the world. Third, I would write, write, write and hopefully finish one of the 6 or so novels I have started on in the past 5 years. Finally, I would raise a family, spending as much time with my kids as they could stand (and probably more). I wouldn't just want to waste away my retirement sitting on the porch yelling at kids to stay off of my lawn. And I certainly wouldn't want to spend my retirement living in a senior citizen's community waiting for my kids and grandkids to contact me.
If I was to dedicate myself to philanthropy, I'd definitely spend most of my time helping out kids from tough backgrounds, but I'd also dedicate myself to some more abstract charity. I have a homeless friend named Brian (he's the Pacific Beach Bum I know best...he spends most of his time at the rec center) who once told me that he "stopped getting laid about 5 years ago" meaning that he had actually gotten laid after he was on the street, but not once he was really a true homeless guy. So I would start a program to get homeless guys laid. I'd take them shopping for a nice outfit, get them cleaned up and buy them a prostitute. In essence I'd be helping out two people for every homeless guy I helped, and it'd be good for the economy too. Think about it: the homeless guy is getting clean, a new outfit, and sex; the prostitute is getting extra business (as the homeless guy wasn't a potential client until I helped him) and money to spend and the economy is benefitting from the contribution of someone who had previously not contributed anything to the economy.
Life never goes how you'd expect. If it did, I'd be living in a cul-de-sac with Cam Loughlin, Beto Peliks, Graham Norwood, David Kaufman, Matt DiFonso (sp?) and the rest of the "crazy boys" of Nueva, all of us raising our kids (who are all the exact same age) to play on the same little league team. In reality, even though I always plan things out, I really have no idea what's coming. Because I think the way I do, it makes it harder for me to enjoy myself when I don't really live in the moment. I tend to always be lost in my thoughts, analyzing things or getting antsy to get to something new. While I would love to change myself and "live for today" and ignore the future, that's just not me. Now that I'm a quarter century old, my priorities remain the same, but who knows what could happen next? After all, I'd never been to San Diego (that I could remember) until 3 years ago, now I live here. Hell, a month ago, I would have told you I'd be teaching now, so I have no idea what will happen next. All I know is that I need to roll with the punches and hopefully the next quarter-century will see me achieve all of my goals. Either that, or I could just retire today...
If I had grown up in the 1950s, I'd be a junior executive living in a 3-bedroom house with a homemaker wife and a kid or two already. I'd also be making enough money to support that lifestyle. Instead, I was born in 1981 into a changing society, women (and minorities) have doubled the size of the workforce while the path to becoming an executive has become much longer and more difficult. But then again, so has the path to starting a family. I'm 25 now (well...not yet) and I'm still at least a couple of years away from starting a family. My problem is that I always look at things way down the line. When I make a choice, I think to myself "how will this affect my retirement?" instead of "how will this affect me?". I am so concerned with having a long retirement where I could make my own choices and live by my standards that I sacrifice my current happiness in exchange for the chance that I'll move up just that much faster and inch that much closer to retirement. If I could retire tomorrow, I would.
So what would I do if I retired tomorrow? First, I would use my wealth and time to make a difference, rather than wasting away in an office processing financial documents. Second, I would travel the world. Third, I would write, write, write and hopefully finish one of the 6 or so novels I have started on in the past 5 years. Finally, I would raise a family, spending as much time with my kids as they could stand (and probably more). I wouldn't just want to waste away my retirement sitting on the porch yelling at kids to stay off of my lawn. And I certainly wouldn't want to spend my retirement living in a senior citizen's community waiting for my kids and grandkids to contact me.
If I was to dedicate myself to philanthropy, I'd definitely spend most of my time helping out kids from tough backgrounds, but I'd also dedicate myself to some more abstract charity. I have a homeless friend named Brian (he's the Pacific Beach Bum I know best...he spends most of his time at the rec center) who once told me that he "stopped getting laid about 5 years ago" meaning that he had actually gotten laid after he was on the street, but not once he was really a true homeless guy. So I would start a program to get homeless guys laid. I'd take them shopping for a nice outfit, get them cleaned up and buy them a prostitute. In essence I'd be helping out two people for every homeless guy I helped, and it'd be good for the economy too. Think about it: the homeless guy is getting clean, a new outfit, and sex; the prostitute is getting extra business (as the homeless guy wasn't a potential client until I helped him) and money to spend and the economy is benefitting from the contribution of someone who had previously not contributed anything to the economy.
Life never goes how you'd expect. If it did, I'd be living in a cul-de-sac with Cam Loughlin, Beto Peliks, Graham Norwood, David Kaufman, Matt DiFonso (sp?) and the rest of the "crazy boys" of Nueva, all of us raising our kids (who are all the exact same age) to play on the same little league team. In reality, even though I always plan things out, I really have no idea what's coming. Because I think the way I do, it makes it harder for me to enjoy myself when I don't really live in the moment. I tend to always be lost in my thoughts, analyzing things or getting antsy to get to something new. While I would love to change myself and "live for today" and ignore the future, that's just not me. Now that I'm a quarter century old, my priorities remain the same, but who knows what could happen next? After all, I'd never been to San Diego (that I could remember) until 3 years ago, now I live here. Hell, a month ago, I would have told you I'd be teaching now, so I have no idea what will happen next. All I know is that I need to roll with the punches and hopefully the next quarter-century will see me achieve all of my goals. Either that, or I could just retire today...
posted by Dan Pasternack at 4:50 PM
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