In my teen years and my early adult life, I was dreamy about early retirement. I thought if I just pushed myself hard today, sacrifice, work hard, hustle and do what ever it takes that by the time I was 50 I could retire. Retirement for me meant to sit back and do nothing.

Do nothing? What does that look like? As I reflect back on my journey, I have to laugh. I am the most impatient and most incapable person of doing nothing. I get bored easily and find it very hard to sit still. This was my goal to retire extra early than the then average age of retirement so that I could do nothing.

Retirement is an invitation to die. The word actually means ‘to be put on the shelf’. Traditionally we would do so once we were no longer capable of doing the type of work we did. Back in the day what we did was very physically. Today it is not.

Life is magically and the more I venture on my journey of personal development and transformation the further I discover my true self and what life really means. Retirement is not what I desire nor is it a goal, its actually something I wish to avoid at all costs.

Retirement to me means being restricted from doing everything I truly want to do. Freedom on the other hand is the opposite, the ability to think, say and do exactly how I want, when I want. Freedom is the new retirement and this is now what give me purpose and the driving force behind everything I do.

If I knew what I know now when I was 20 I would have already retired. Correction! I would be living much more freely at an earlier age. Here are my lessons that I have discovered so far that have helped me live more freely and essentially retiring the thought of retiring.

Find Your Passion, Act with Passion.

My first discovery I made as I began to break free from the mould of society has created and was to start following my passions. Not always possible, I know. We have basic needs that need to be meet and there are certain activities today that are necessary for us to upkeep these needs.

However, you can nurture your passions on the side. I have found when you do this you not only get excited once again about life but your side passions actually become infectious to other aspects of your life.

Generally, doing what we are passionate about make us happy. Happiness is a powerful emotion and hard to beat down by others. When you return to doing those shitty tasks or that work you simply don’t enjoy, you will find them more bearable. It is important to keep following your passion consistently to keep that feeling alive. You may just find by doing this you will eventually create a vehicle that will allow you to do it full time.

Also, it must be noted that even if you don’t enjoy certain aspects of your life that you can’t quickly get rid of, you can add little injection of passion to them. Instead of thinking ‘why me’, ‘why am I doing this’, ‘how long will this go on for’, start thinking about how you can create value from each situation. How could you enjoy the activity more? Passion can be created in anything!

Do What You Love, Today.

To me retirement meant sacrificing life today to do what I love later, in retirement. For many of us this is the case. We do the grind. We wake, rush to work, log on, log off, come home, retire from the day with mindless activities and then repeat. We do this continually for years without even knowing what for. We, society, have created this system to allow us to cope with this mundane existence. If you are fortunate early on in life you will realise this and you will commit to making change.

Doing what you love today matters. What is important to you? Is it working your job, spending time with family, writing, making great food to share with others, playing with the kids, staying back late in the office? Often we neglect what we love in sacrifice for pleasing others however the true discovery I have made in the last few years is that doing what I love is fundamentally what it means to be free.

If then I can do what I love everyday from now until the end of my days I will be freer, it will be like retirement everyday. What I realised is that I don’t even need much to do many of those things I love. Often we think we need more, more money, more time, more whatever, but this is simply not the case. You can schedule time everyday to do those things you love.

By doing the things I love I have found I have increased the time I have for doing more of these things, I have raised my happiness levels and have been in a better position to serve others more. Truly powerful stuff.

Stop Working for Money, Work for Freedom.

Working for money is simply a means to an end. Working for freedom is much more. If you consider your work is to just earn money, then you are likely to attach belonging to that money. By belonging I mean that you belong to it – this means money owns you. This is not what you want as when this happens its much harder to escape the grind.

Money is seen as necessary to pay the rent, mortgage, help buy food, pay for fuel, give you some entertainment activities, cable TV, movies, dinners, drink and help you buy stuff that raises a short-term mood of happiness. When you work for money, money doesn’t work for you, you work for it, remember that.

Start instead seeing work as a method to grow your levels of freedom in life. When we work we exchange time for money. You can get more money but never more time therefore its important to assess and understand what that exchange looks like in your personal situation.

If the money you earn is used to buy you more shit which only holds you back and locks you into the job it’s a pointless exchange. If, however you are using the money to raise your level of freedom by investing it, then the time for money exchange will be more appreciated.

If the reason you work is to give you more freedom today, then you are proceeding with purpose. If its not than what’s it all for? Seriously, is it really all worth it?

Be Grateful for Who You Are and What You Have

Greater freedom has been realised in my life as I begun to accept myself more for who I am and become more grateful for all that I have. In the rat race of life towards retirement people forget who they are. They become driven by their ego, they become obsessed with comparing themselves to others. The ‘my dick is bigger than yours’ mentality. It’s a lost cause. Competition is grand but only when its directed inwardly towards yourself.

There is not one other person that exists like you. There is not one other who has had the same upbringing or currently living with the same circumstances. Comparing yourself will not help you progress, it will defeat you. It may even provide you benchmarks that you may truly exceed if you didn’t compare.

Your uniqueness is all that matters. Your soul has been shut off by years of domestication. Its time to resuscitate your soul. Let go of what drives you for superficial enhancement and start connecting more deeply with your soul.

Finally, you need to realise all that already have by becoming grateful. When we live for everything we don’t have, all those things we desire, wish for, and think we need, we suffer. This behaviour sets us up for greater disappointment, stress, unhappiness and can often leave us felling more empty. It can even lead us to giving up the chase of our dreams.

It is better to be grateful for all that you have both within you and externally. I realised that I have much more than majority of the worlds population already, most of us in the west do, and for that I am grateful. This allows me to be happier and content with life. It allows greater clarity that assists me to continue the focus on my life goals.

Don’t be Elated by Prosperity, or Grieve in Decline.

The practice of being grateful will help this process. Our character can change in moments of prosperity and in times of poverty how ever extreme these may be. If we can become more consistent, no matter the situation we face, we will feel and live with greater freedom.

Gratitude’s helps us realise what we have even when we are in poverty. By adopting a fasting practice in any aspect of life we will be able to deal with such situations when they strike us unexpectedly. This practice means limiting something in your life that you take for granted for a period of time – like not eating for 2 days every so often.

If you are like me I get very excited by certain events or when things have gone favourably my way. Sometimes to extremely so. What I have learnt is that what goes up must go down. Some people have life in greater balance than I yet I have learnt to take prosperity and decline with more calmness.

When things are great I am pumped but when they vanish or become more of a struggle to obtain I can become stressed, depressed, negative and just not very nice to be around. Yet now know that I still have everything I desire no matter the circumstance. In this state I can to progress towards more of the life I desire with greater ease.

If you are struggling in life. If you are looking to live more freely. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then its time to break free. You don’t have to accept life as it is anymore but you have to be willing and committed to taking action. We all have the power to be free spirits and not only is this our right but its our responsibility.

You will uncover magic as you start retiring or freeing yourself from your current existence. You have not been given this life to simply exist, you have been given this life to truly live. To truly live means doing whatever it is you desire – an existence obtainable by us all. Why wait until your 60 to start living when you can start living today?

Retirement is here for us all now, it comes in the form of freedom. If more and more of what you do in life is for the purpose of creating more freedom, then I believe you will be winning. You will really start living.