Mini-retirements
Chances are, if you are reading this blog, I know you, and you are already acquainted with the concept of mini-retirements. The recent popularity of author Tim Ferris' book The 4-Hour Workweek has brought the idea of mini-retirements to the masses. In his blog, he actually continues to write quite frequently on the topic as well.
The idea behind the mini-retirement is that the typical plan of working hard through 40-some-odd years to only then be followed by a relatively long vacation seems little backwards. First, to save your retirement for a time when the rest is generally accompanied by a certain amount of restlessness, sending you right back to work of some kind, or when you are too old to enjoy many of the things you would have liked to do when you were younger, all seems a waste. Ferris' idea is that we should take mini-retirements throughout our lives, where over the course of a few months or even years, we change the scenery, even the work, and recharge our batteries for new eras in life.
Some other interesting perks to the mini-retirement concept include that many times it ends up being cheaper to rent an apartment and buy food for a few months in another country than if you were to retain a residence in the your own country. Ferris includes blog posts that talk about getting much of this travel for free by simply volunteering for humanitarian organizations. The experiences alone can give you great new ideas and expanded knowledge leading to new goals and all this in addition to the character growth from volunteering. Consider this guy's post on the topic.
I also decided on this topic as it makes for a nice introduction to this week's theme: Travel.
-Taylor
3 comments:
First off, I really like the header picture you used for this post. Reagan Airport is a great one, with some funny elements of 1960's architecture with a completely new wing that is really great. It's one of my favorite airports, actually, despite being pretty small.
The idea of mini-retirements is great, though hard to get used to. One reason I'm glad to be going into the academy is that it's really easy (and, somewhat, expected) for professors to go on mini-retirements or sabaticals. This is definitely a perk to the job and I know that people will work better in the long run if they don't have to work 9 to 5 for 40 years before taking a good break.
Great! Where do I sign?
Hmmm... enticing. I like this week's theme-travel.
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