When I was 30, I thought I should do something so good that I should be able to retire at 40! Then, life happened…

I dived into my own business, tried my best to scale it and then when it didn’t work, finally decided to close it down.

It’s been ten years since then, and almost fifteen since I had that first feeling of retiring at 40. I am beyond 40 now.

And I feel, it is better I didn’t succeed in my mission then!

I will come back to this and explain in a bit. But first, a slight detour.

This week, one of my army batchmates took voluntary retirement. After serving the minimum mandatory twenty years. He had a good run and decided to move on to do something new and more interesting for him.

I and a couple of other batchmates posted in Bangalore got together to celebrate his retirement. During the party, we talked about life after retirement. My biggest observation – all of us are planning to do something post retiring.

As I came back home post the party, I was thinking of my father, uncles, and a few other elders I know. Most of them took to doing something even after they retired.

I remember, when I had naively asked one of my uncles about why he continued to work still, he told me it’s better to continue doing than sitting.

I didn’t understand it then but I do now. Because retirement is hard.

It is difficult to just sit around and not do much. It is also not the best use of time when most of us have about twenty or so years post retiring to fill our lives with.

Coming back to my statement about being happy failing at my mission to retire at 40, I think it taught me innumerable lessons. But most importantly it allowed me to view life as a large continuum, a marathon, and not a sprint.

I realized there’s more to life than just earning enough money and putting your feet up.

Well, I still want to earn enough money. But not to put my feet up. Rather, to do things I would have the freedom to try. And not having to worry about failures or getting into a tight situation.

I don’t know if it makes sense to you. To me, it does…