“To cross the Rubicon is a metaphor which means to take an irrevocable step that commits one to a specific course. When Julius Caesar was about to cross the tiny Rubicon River in 49 B.C.E., he quoted from a play by Menander to say "anerriphtho kybos!" or "let the die be cast" in Greek.” www.thouthco.com
Jeremy and I are trying to decide which Rubicon to cross. I will be 49 this year and he turned 46 in March. Not really close to what would typically be retirement age, but we are both at a point in our lives where our careers matter less to us than our quality of life. And quality of life is less about the stuff we have accumulated or the things we have accomplished and more about the adventures we have experienced and the relationships we have built.
Jeremy works as a Senior Manager for Amazon and I am a Principal of a K-12 Online School. Both of our careers are meaningful and fulfilling yet exhausting and stressful. We come to the end of our work days and are so tired that we don’t have a lot left in the tank to really experience life the way we would like. We enjoy off-roading and traveling and would love to just wake up in the morning and figure out where we want to want to go today.
Of course this is way easier said than done. We have three children who while technically adults at 18, 18, and 19 are really not at a point where they are equipped to take care of themselves. I’m sure they would survive if they had to, but our confidence level is not as high as we would like it to be. We also have a house that requires maintenance and investment on a constant basis. So we ask ourselves…if we wanted to live the “what do we do today?” lifestyle, then what do we do with the kids? the dogs? the house? the cars? How do we make money? Do we need to make money? Can we live off our investments? If we live off our investments, are we blowing our retirement? Will we even be able to travel if we wait to use our retirement money when we are retirement age? What about insurance and our gym memberships? What about friendships we have cultivated? Where would be go anyway? Are we talking about camping? RVing? Backpacking through Europe? What?
At this point, we have way more questions than answers. All we know is we want to live a life worth living and we are seeking our Rubicon.