A Teaching Moment

I often start conversations with my kids with “I read this article”.  That usually elicits a groan from them, so I’ll take my conversation starter here.

I read this article entitled What Would it Teach my Kids if I Stopped Working?  I won’t comment on the actual article, but I found the question itself a little off-putting.  Perhaps because it is a question I wrestled with in making my decision to stop working.

Here’s what I’m not trying to teach them:

A Small Corner of my Yard

• Money can’t buy you happiness.  I don’t know about the happiness part, but I like money.  I want to be able to buy things like airline tickets, dinners at ridiculously expensive restaurants, a heated driveway, and bark mulch.  Lots and lots of bark mulch.  Every day I am fascinated by the green bars in my Quicken budget that race towards the point where they become red.  It’s like a video game for me.  So I would very much like to find another source of income.
• Live life like there is no tomorrow. As I mentioned, I like math.  I know there is a very high probability that there will indeed be a tomorrow. So, you better be prepared for it.
• Follow your passion. In my opinion, “passion” is an overused term.  That might be because I have very little of it.  Those who know me might say I’m passionate about the Red Sox and my kids.  But following the Red Sox can be bad for one’s health, and my kids don’t even want me to follow them on Twitter.

Here’s what I would like to teach them:

Life is very long. Don’t make it longer by sticking with something just because you are stubborn, loyal, busy, and/or afraid.

Call me an optimist (you would be the first), but it seems to me most people should be able to get a certain level of satisfaction out of their jobs – be it CEO, engineer, plumber, full-time mom (or dad), or professional retiree. While I don’t see myself ever being passionate about a job, I want the work day to fly by – maybe not all of the time, but for a good percentage of the time. There have been times in the past when this has been true.  I want to find that again. For me, that meant stop working (for money, at least temporarily.)

As my daughters embark upon their own careers, I hope they are willing to take risks and change things up a bit when they need to so that the days don’t drag on for them.  At the end of their careers, I don’t want them to say “Wow. Where did the time go.”  I want them to say “Wow! Where did the time go!?!”