Originally Posted by barry123400

Self confidence is the key in my opinion. Develops to different levels in different people mostly by past exposure to things.

Somehow or other I seem to always be fairly fortunate. Or the victom of good coincidence. This could end at any time of course.

I purposly sought freedom from the typical grind when in my late twenties and early thirties. You learn to do whatever is required to both enable it and maintain it. Initially it is probably not the easiest road but always remains interesting. I still do a small amount of contract work that feels like an employee job to me. I do not find it all too enjoyable from that perspective.

Currently I would like to free up some time to do more of the things my wife and myself would like to do. I do find it hard to get totally off the merry go round though.

There are a lot of things that are probably good about living day to day. Unfortunatly this was never our practice. We act kind of like there are gaurantees out there. The reality is of course there are not really and as we age things can go full circle pretty fast.

So I settle for while it is good it is good. Ignoring the innevatable of course. Except we make no long range plans more than a year or two out anymore. Will be seventy this year and the wife and myself are still in pretty good health.

I guess the secret is trying to format your life and family so that you get to enjoy life as much as possible within reason. A habit I developed was to always keep additional pokers in the fire. So if one was wearing down or cooling off I had another one right there. Even at my age there are still some in the fire waiting if the need is ever there. As things are right now there is no need.