A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Where are you and where are you going?
IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Meanwhile, and update from the realm of the mundane. I'm a couple hoops through the the array of hoops I must hop through to tee up my transition to retiree status. Hit a bit of a snag on hoop 3 of 7 but easy to resolve, just sets me back a couple days.

Grappling with "the paperwork" is the single most intimidating task I've undertaken since my initial move from Illinois to Boston. There definitely a sense of finality to it--with my employer there's no coming back from retirement, and in reality going back to a professional occupation would be an epic fail unless my mindset changes a bunch. Staring that finality in the face is more difficult than anticipated. With each "submit" button push things get closer and more real.

Things are coming along around the old house. First wave of minor update/repair contractor tasks is behind me. The next is scheduled, the next to last should get scheduled tomorrow. The last is just getting my on-its-last-legs water heater replaced. Everything beyond that I'm going to leave to the decorating consultant/contract manager I intend to retain.

Outside I got some sod down to patch an unsightly bare area near the house. I'm afraid my eclectic collection of hummingbird/pollinator plants won't last much longer--they don't quite fit the BH&G template of stylish landscaping. The collection is already waning though, I haven't replaced any of the marginally hardy specimens that perished over the last three winters. At its peak it was an enjoyable hobby that made the back yard rather lively. Now it's just a hint of its former self, but I still like being out there playing in the dirt. Be working on cleaning up curb appeal relevant landscape beds this weekend if Moderna #2 doesn't set me back too much.

At this point I find myself a little envious of people who hate their jobs and present living situations. My prudence bone wails in protest of leaving pretty dang good behind.

Since we're expecting a little rain this weekend I'll have a chance to revisit some of the next house considerations mentioned prior. This time I want to steel man the case against the house in question.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Alphaville »

IlliniDave wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 8:32 am
At this point I find myself a little envious of people who hate their jobs and present living situations. My prudence bone wails in protest of leaving pretty dang good behind.
im sorry i haven't read the full narrative here, so i can't grasp the whole series of decisions that brought you to this moment; but since it's you who is pointing out the internal resistance at this irrevocable choice: maybe it's a good time to ask for an elevator-pitch style recap... why are you doing this?

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Alphaville wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 8:37 am
im sorry i haven't read the full narrative here, so i can't grasp the whole series of decisions that brought you to this moment; but since it's you who is pointing out the internal resistance at this irrevocable choice: maybe it's a good time to ask for an elevator-pitch style recap... why are you doing this?
The odds of me being pithy enough for an elevator pitch are vanishingly small. :lol: I've been on this ER journey for 10 years, and this particular journal is a little over 7 years old. I went back to the first post and here's what I said:

Someday I might talk more about this, but my goal is to gain financial independence with some reasonable margin, then move back "home" to Northern Illinois. When I look at all the considerations that go into that, there's a general convergence right around the time I turn 55, so that is my target date. I'm not doing this to escape my present "life", it's driven by a stronger pull towards some new endeavors. Although that may at times soften my sense of urgency, I think it's an advantage for me to be operating from positive energy/motivation rather than from negative. I'm just wired that way.

I'm on the cusp of 57 putting me a couple years behind "schedule".

So from the beginning I've not looked at my present life with revulsion and harnessed that to motivate ER the way a lot of people seem to. The genesis of it all was heading into Christmas vacation in 2011 believing there were better than 50/50 odds I'd get laid off the following January. Mid-level mid-lifers were still experiencing extended unemployment/under employment at the time. I started by looking at how long I could go without an equivalent job before I would lose my house as a function of how long I could hold on before getting kicked to the curb. Based on some naive assumptions I calculated a number of years I'd need to hang on to my job until I could bridge to retirement with part-time minimum wage work. As it turned out, new contracts came, the immediate crisis passed, and I went about life but with newly structured financial priorities. But over the next three months a tumbler in my subconscious tumbled and one day I asked myself the question, "Why not make that fallback plan the plan?"

Deferring gratification is something I've excelled at for a long time. While contemplating that question I revisited all the things I dreamed about in my youthful days, and examined all the cans I'd been kicking down the road while giving priority to taking care of business. The two that stood out were spending more time "back home" and above all, spending extended time up in the remote upper western Great Lakes region ("Northwoods" for short). At the time i was divorced, one daughter had already relocated to Ohio, and the other temporarily to Tennessee with plans to move on to Ohio near her sister, so only my job was keeping me here.

That's a lot of words about how I got here. The why of it is embedded there: primarily to act on a latent desire to return to my roots and wallow in the Northwoods to my heart's content. My decision to take a job on the East Coast right out of college was an impulsive one, and through the years I've consistently thought that if I had it to do over again, I'd hold out and find something closer. But careers get going, and in my case the family thing happened along the way, so all that was tucked away in the drawer labeled "Someday". But I'm nearing the point where someday needs to be today.

At this moment what I'm experiencing is a war between my inner calculator and my inner child. I don't particularly like my work, but I don't dislike it either. I enjoy the people I work with. The pay is getting embarrassing relative to what I feel like I'm contributing to the world, but it's what they want to give me, and do so with an annual, "Here's a raise, sorry it can't be more, maybe next year we'll have a better budget for salary actions." That energizes my prudent gratification-delaying subsystem. Treasure-in has never operated more efficiently. There are regrets to shutting it down.

At the same time I'm in danger of spending the rest of my life imprisoned by too much comfort and routine. Or maybe it is just the wrong comfort and routine. I am one of those people who needs to have a rhythm. The current rhythm is one I'm used to and is profitable. My inner Spock says no-brainer, you never know how much money you really need. At the same time the youthful dreamer says you've done enough, go be who you were meant to be. I suppose I do have a distant sense of being a frog in a pot of water on a stove, that sticking with the same-old same-old will eventually kill me even though there is no discomfort.

Maybe I should keep those inner battles to myself. I err on the side of being forthright because people just starting their version of the journey supposedly use these journal threads as references. I don't recall ever seeing an account of an ER journey where it wasn't a very crisp cut-and-dried decision. They may be out there--admittedly I don't go scouring the interwebs looking for them. I guess some of us are more prone to constantly testing assumptions instead of defaulting to an analog of the-science-is-settled.

Dunno that I fulfilled your request, but it was a good exercise to revisit some of that. Some things have changed since the groundwork was laid, but the balance hasn't tipped yet.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Alphaville »

hey, thanks for the answer! glad it was good for you also to clarify once more why you're doing this.

i've never heard of these northwoods, but i get it. i feel the same about cities, and the sea...

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Alphaville wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:41 am
hey, thanks for the answer! glad it was good for you also to clarify once more why you're doing this.

i've never heard of these northwoods, but i get it. i feel the same about cities, and the sea...
The spot I have a little toehold in is aka Superior National Forest in NE Minnesota, but I use the term Northwoods to refer collectively to N. Wisconsin, the U.P., much of N. Minnesota, and N. Ontario. Likely much of N. Michigan would qualify as well, just never been there. One of the big draws is the abundance of lakes. I justify having paid a bit of a premium by noting I'm not far from a divide between watersheds that account roughly a third of the world's fresh water supposedly, the headwater I'm in flows to Hudson Bay, and a little ways east/south to L. Superior. So should earth begin to resemble Venus in my lifetime I could probably get a pretty good capital gain from selling it. :)

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Alphaville »

wow, that is some calculation, ha ha. you do have an elevator pitch for your desired location.

got any broad data/estimates for maine, by any chance?

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Alphaville wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:09 am
wow, that is some calculation, ha ha.

got any data/estimates for maine?
No, I know most of the state is ecologically similar to the Western Great Lakes region, but I never looked into it. Ive had a pin in the map in the vicinity of where my hideout is since 1979, which was the first time I visited the Boundary Waters/Quetico Provincial Forest wilderness areas. I didn't do a trade study, just went with that first impulse. Coincidentally that little finger above Lake Superior fares relatively well for the US in all the climate doom model maps I've seen. I forgot where I got the water data. Of course the other side of the divide a few miles from me feeds into the Great Lakes which is probably a preponderance of that fraction of the earth's fresh water (not counting ice, I believe), but the area drained by the Rainy River through Lake Winnipeg on to the Hudson Bay has a lot of water too. I cite those sorts of facts to disguise the impulsiveness/inefficiency of the decision and make it appear wise and carefully planned.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Alphaville »

hahaha my love of maine is purely aesthetic: sea and green forest, side by side. plus lobsters and great seafood. plus great blueberries. plus the chance to sail. i mean... i will look for data, but im sold already. data would be more for "how can i make this work..."

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Alphaville:

Some go so far as to claim that the smell of the Northwoods is addictive. My “happy spot” is also in the Northwoods, but further due east. Part of my long term calculation for my purchase of city house was that the Northwoods will be very good location post-apocalypse and my new city is in gateway to Northwoods location and should experience reversal in population decline over next 30 years.

@IlliniDave:

It is more than kind of a big deal to leave career/employer you stuck with reasonably happily for strong majority of adult life. The only thing I’ve stuck with that long has been my region, inclusive of Northwoods, and I overtly decided not to make location change around 15 years ago. OTOH, we both know what it was like to leave a long-term marriage near the end of our child-rearing years. I predict that it won’t be like that because you have been moving towards something new and better rather than away from something old and dysfunctional. I will be interested to see what you get yourself up to.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:37 am
@Alphaville:

Some go so far as to claim that the smell of the Northwoods is addictive.
is there salt water though? i need saltwater. i don't mean just brackish. sea air is my crack.

dammit, i even love the characteristic faraway stench of a dead rotting seabird with a belly full of fish :lol:

eta: looks like for the sea i'd have to hop over to hudson bay (if they'd have me)

upon research, looks the maine coast shares similar vegetation so i get what you guys mean. also, glorious vermont.

anyway, sorry for the derail! didn't mean to derail. i thank you for the replies and i'll hit the stop button now.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Alphaville wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:34 am
hahaha my love of maine is purely aesthetic: sea and green forest, side by side. plus lobsters and great seafood. plus great blueberries. plus the chance to sail. i mean... i will look for data, but im sold already. data would be more for "how can i make this work..."
Largely the same for me and my Northwoods, all rooted in visceral reaction. One day I said, "I'm gonna do this." Another bit of interacting interdependent feedbacky sort of magic to the whole thing was clearing a hurdle regarding the stash. Pulling a bunch of money out to finance the old cabin-in-the-woods trope pre-FI resulted in the epiphanic iDaveism: the stash is there to serve me; I'm not here to serve the stash.

With a little creativity you can spin a yarn that leaves no possible conclusion other than only the thickest of morons would decline to <whatever it is you want to do>. :lol:

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:37 am
... Some go so far as to claim that the smell of the Northwoods is addictive ... I will be interested to see what you get yourself up to.
There is definitely something to the scent in the air up there having power. For me it is a calming thing. En route to my hideout I usually stop in Eau Claire which is both a big enough place and a ways south of the "Canadian Shield" that it falls short of what I consider Northwoods. Next/final stop is Two Harbors which is a smaller town but the air is dominated by it's proximity to L Superior and near the thoroughfare there's just not much of that good earthiness to the air, so the first good blast of it comes when I arrive at the hideout. It feels a little like getting back home in the house after a long winter day of running errands and doing outside chores.

I've tried to be very deliberate about separating myself from my occupation, but after 34 years the two wind up braided together and some unraveling is certainly required. And after all that time (~60% of my entire life) it's nontrivial to discard something that constant. The only similarity so far with becoming re-bachelored is having a hole to fill again. In both cases there is some uncertainly surrounding that task, but so far it's less intimidating because ER was planned and cultivated for a decade whereas the divorce was ~8 weeks from concept to final decree. I'm interested to see what I get up to as well! I have a lot of things arranged and planned, but collectively they are more of a setting of the stage than anything.
Last edited by IlliniDave on Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Married2aSwabian
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:45 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Married2aSwabian »

Yes, the UP is wonderful. You’ll love it. We don’t get up there often enough, even though we live in MI. It’s funny you bring up climate change with regard to this area, as I’ve also thought that Lake Superior and it’s shoreline could become an invaluable resource in the near future, with more people moving there.

I’m sure it is hard to finalize everything, once it gets to the point of cutting ties with the corporate world.
I’m counting down the months now myself..21 to go.

We binge-watched Mad Men last year. This scene from one of the last shows says it all:

https://youtu.be/R0e8mfHzAjQ

...one conference room bullshit session too many - get me the f@*k outta here!

Gilberto de Piento
Posts: 1942
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:23 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I passed through that area one time, its a very nice part of the country, though I try not to mention it too much lest it get ruined. Id like to recommend Northern Waters Smokehaus if you find yourself in Duluth. I have no idea what you like but I thought they had great sandwiches. They also have smoked meat. Expensive though.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Married2aSwabian wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:29 am
Yes, the UP is wonderful.
I've never been to the UP proper, been just south of it in WI. For a while my sister and ex-BIL lived in the UP, only about 120 miles as the crow flies from the hideout but I never had a chance to visit them there on my travels. Exploring a little bit of it is on my bucket list.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Gilberto de Piento wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:35 am
I passed through that area one time, its a very nice part of the country, though I try not to mention it too much lest it get ruined. Id like to recommend Northern Waters Smokehaus if you find yourself in Duluth. I have no idea what you like but I thought they had great sandwiches. They also have smoked meat. Expensive though.
I'll try to check it out. I pass through Duluth/Superior every time I go up that way, but being the largest urban area I have to traverse, I usually try to leadfoot it through there. I've taken Hwy 61 all the way from Duluth to Thunder Bay, ON. One of the cooler scenic drives in the Eastern US.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Alphaville »

IlliniDave wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:48 am
the stash is there to serve me; I'm not here to serve the stash.
hahaha!

indeed...

anyway enjoy those northwoods.

and don't write off your previous life and experience altogether--maybe some time in the future you can write a book about those woods from a systems perspective... things have a way to come back and reincarnate...like theme + variations.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

I'm in a weird place. Unabashedly mixing metaphors, it's like watching grass grow while being a bug increasingly aware of the oncoming windshield.

I've hit a few minor snags with completing paperwork which are resolving, but it's aggravatingly slow. I should have everything complete by the end of the weekend then on Monday I have a skype meeting with a benefits specialist to make sure I know the process of going from employee->COBRA->retiree medical insurance. Soon medical insurance will be my largest ongoing expense unless maybe I bundle all my taxes together. Says something about life and the world when the those are the top two expenses, I think.

Anyway, I have a firm goal for myself to get the paperwork in the mail by Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Even though it is not the point of no return, it will be a significant internal seismic shift for me. Might warrant a brief, "I did it!" entry here.

I just got the new tax assessment for my house. A couple years ago it appeared that net of transaction costs I would barely clear what I paid for the house in 1998 (in nominal dollars). Real estate values have gone a little nuts around here since then. A lot can change in three months, but I'm now expecting to clear more than I paid for it, at least in nominal dollars. The assessment is reasonably close to what a realtor told me this past February, which at the time I thought was a little too rosy and maybe just a tactic to encourage people on the fence to sell. Makes me feel slightly better about sinking money to address deferred repairs/maintenance/upgrades.

A lesson learned. I deferred a lot of those activities to the run up to listing thinking that it would be best to have everything new and fresh when buyers start viewing. That may or may not be a good selling strategy, but it makes for a three-dimensional mutual distraction--getting all that done, buttoning things up at work, and getting all my own stuff ready to vacate the premises and relocate). I have an internet acquaintance who sold her place a couple years ago and rented until retiring at the end of March this year. That cleared the plate for her to button up work and pick her first retirement location. Of course my plan had been to retire at the end of last year and take a few months while waiting for the lake to thaw to get all the other stuff ready. The delay has it all stacked up and for a serial-minded person like me, it's not ideal.

April was a decent month. Stash went up. Definitely have the ball rolling forward now for moving on. Spending was high, but all the sale-specific stuff I intend to back out once the transaction is complete and decrement the proceeds instead. With that considered spending has been pretty modest for me, and for the year I'm pretty well below the planned-for spending I've been baking into my readiness assessments. Haven't had as much time for recharging as I would like, but there will be plenty of time for that later.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

So, add a stepped-up physical fitness regimen to my list of retirement priorities. Or, since it has already been there, maybe elevate its priority is a better way to say it. I spent yesterday morning taking two large limbs off a tree to let some more sun through where I put sod down last weekend to hide a conspicuous bare area adjacent to the house due to the shade being too heavy. The limbs were up pretty high so I had to get on a step ladder and use a 15' "manual" pole/pruning saw. That sawing action with my arms extended overhead wrecked me. Even laying the sod, a once relatively trivial task, left me sore and stiff.

Like this, I'll never be able to do the adventurous stuff I'd like to do out in the wild places.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Yup, throwing crap in a dumpster all day leaves me similarly wrecked at 56. Reminded me that time spent on activities that Reinvigorate is key, because even at my relatively broke-ass level of Financial stock, Vigor is most limiting factor on Doing What I Want To Do.

Post Reply