TIME

“You are too young to retire.”

I never anticipated hearing this statement as often as I did after retiring at age 50.

After 23 years as a criminal investigator with the federal government and 28 years in the law enforcement profession, I was ready to do something else. I enjoyed my career, my employer, my colleagues, but I was just ready to do something else.

And, I was thinking about time.

Yes, time.

I have thought a lot about time. Perhaps this is something we all do as we age.

Time is equal for everyone. And as I get older, I appreciate that more.

I think about a cartoon that I had hung in my old office as a reminder of this. It depicts three phases of a man’s life. In the first, the young man is chasing money. In the second, he is older, has money in his hands, but is still chasing more. And in the last, he is an old man now. His hands are full of money, but he has come to the end of his trail.

When is it enough?

At some point in life, you need to enjoy what you worked hard for.
For me, I had other passions like teaching, training, traveling.

Sure, I could have waited another 5 or 10 years, but why?

It did not make sense to me to put off my other passions until later in life and have less time to enjoy them. I have always tried to find balance in my life. And this should be no different.

When I hear people complain they do not have enough time, they are really saying they have other priorities.

The best way to manage time is to manage your priorities.

- Brian Townsend, Eagle 6 Training