The year is coming close to an end and we haven’t retired yet.  Weren’t we suppose to retire sometimes after last Christmas?  what the heck happened? 

Yup.  The cat in the photo is us.  The plate of meat is our retirement.

Well, just like in the clip above, the target isn’t moving at all, but is right in front of us as we walk towards it in an increasingly slower pace – sometimes treading on the spot, sometimes sliding back –  our goal slipping farther away.

What happened?  we already decided that it’s time to retire.  We said that we worked too hard for too long and that it’s time for a change. We had everything figured out and a good plan in place.  We had contingencies, figured out income sources for our bridging period until our RRSPs and all the other plans kick in.  What went wrong?

Well, maybe something went right.

The reality is that since we decided to retire, we started making many positive changes at work:  reduced workload, reduced stress, added more time for ourselves and for travel, and set different priorities. As a result we are now enjoying work much more and are content continuing for a little longer.  This is definitely add to the health of our bank account.

We also decided to buy the campervan before retiring.  In the 3 months since we managed to take several trips and more travel is planned for winter.  We feel that we can have a nice balance of work and travel for now; AKA, eat the cake and save it too, and we feel that at this point we are managing to have (almost) the best of both worlds. 

Yes, we are aware that you never know what’s around the corner and that we shouldn’t wait too long, but here we are postponing it anyway.  Are we getting too comfortable in our new routines?  Are we getting cold feet again? 

Not really sure at this point what the answer is, but we wanted to leave you to ponder on how you can change your own situation to be more tolerable if your goals are not achievable just yet. 

We are petty happy with the new status quo, but are still pushing some boundaries.  We are not setting a new target just yet. We will reevaluate in the new year, so wish us courage to follow through with whatever it is that we decide to do. 

In the meantime, we just can’t get enough of this kitty, so here she is again.  Keep on walking, cat, you’ll get there eventually! 

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