Wednesday, January 12, 2011

"Live for the day."

I dreamed I owned a bar whose motto it was: "Live for the day."

So is this?

LIVE for the day.

Live FOR the day.

Live for THE day.

or Live for the DAY.

????

Boy, do I overthink things.


But really, this fits right into what I've been thinking about lately.

I woke up this morning to two headlines in the Bulletin: "Kelly's 'Win the Day' takes Oregon far..." and (subtitle) "How much should you set aside?"

The last article I read before going to bed last night, was about studies in delayed gratification.

My last blog was really about: Did the residents of Bend get ahead of themselves and buy too big of houses, spend too much of their 'Boom' money, and otherwise not plan far enough ahead?

But mostly, I'm at the age (along with Linda), where I'm having to make decisions that will affect the rest of my life. How long do I work? How much do I set aside in these last working years? Should we live more today, instead of waiting?

My tendency is to put everything off for a better day. But my observation of life is -- unexpected things happen, and that better day may never arrive.

It comes down to a choice of; early retirement but not much more than 'get by' money; or later retirement and having some 'play and travel' money.

Or...try to do both, in a way. Keep a working store, but take more time off.

Or some combination thereof.

For the time being, I'll be working through at least one more lease, and probably two more. (Yes, I time my working life around "Leases." Small business.....what can you do?)

As much as I like traveling around with Linda, I also know I have a tendency to get isolated if I don't have some place to meet people on a regular basis. (Frankly, until recently, I thought I probably never retire -- but circumstances have changed enough that I have some options.)

So it's all pretty much up in the air.

1 comment:

H. Bruce Miller said...

"My tendency is to put everything off for a better day. But my observation of life is -- unexpected things happen, and that better day may never arrive."

I think that's a wise observation. As we age, it becomes more and more likely that WORSE days will arrive.

We should enjoy life while we still can instead of waiting until we're old, decrepit and sick. And you strike me as the kind of guy who doesn't need a lot of material things to enjoy life. (Well, except your giant-screen TV.)