One of my two favorite poems was written by Robert Frost, The Road Less Traveled. Although I heard it when I was only a boy, one passage from the poem has continued to be on constant replay in my mind throughout my life,
"Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood, And I Took The One Less Traveled By, And THAT Has Made All The Difference!"
I also remember a quote from someone whose name I don't remember and cannot give credit to for his insight, when he said, "I climbed the corporate ladder all the way to the top, only to discover that I had placed my ladder on the wrong wall."
I've learned many things in life, that are truly written in stone: 1. Change is Inevitable, so learn to expect it, respect it, and then, go with the flow.
2. When you find out you made a bad decision, cut your losses short and get on with your life. 3. It's okay to fail, as long as you learn a lesson from the failure and keep trying until you succeed. Thomas Edison failed in about 10,000 attempts to invent the light bulb. And one day, he succeeded.
Colonel Sanders was considered a failure until he was 65 years old and started Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The preceeding rhetoric, was an introduction to the "How I decided to Un-Retire, enter a “New Beginning” Adventure, and start, manage, and grow a business that I had been curious about for many years while in Corporate America, but had always placed on the back burner.
Because of the nature of the businesses I decided to start, it was obvious that it would require intense study of subjects that I knew virtually nothing about, and to totally begin focusing my time during the day to accomplish the goal I had conjured up.
The toast “May You Live In Interesting Times” has certainly taken on a totally different meaning today. We're definitely living in exciting times and if you aren't participating, you may wake up one morning to discover that the world has not only passed you by, but you’ve become a dinosaur.
In the past, people's life's were divided into 3 stages:
(1) Birth to Completion of Education.
(2) Choosing a Career and working until it was time for Retirement.
(3) Retirement until Death.
While these 3 stages of life continue to be followed by many people, which is certainly a great choice for some people, many other people nearing or in retirement, have now chosen an alternative route, due to life expectancies now being much longer than they used to be, thanks to medical advancements; and there is a new "Un-Retirement" or "No-Retirement" movement occurring that appeals to many people who either actually enjoy what they are doing, or might have re-evaluated their retirement needs, based upon life expectancy.
This has led to a significant change in the 3 stages of life, and some people are now opting to rewrite the traditional Stage #3, leading to this new paradigm:
(1) Birth to Completion of Education, the time when people develop ethical values and begin to dream of the future, (2) Choosing a Career and working until it was time for Retirement or either postponing or rejecting traditional retirement.
(3) "Un-Retirement", also known as "New Beginnings"; when you take the financial assets gained during your career, and either begin a new career or start an entrepreneurial enterprise.
Which is exactly what I decided to do, at least for now.