There are never enough hours, never enough days, never enough years....but, realistically the enjoyment and fulfillment of life is about priorities.
From birth to two days before my 30th birthday my life was all about work. It was school, it was job, it was total commitment. Yes, as a kid I spent time on the water but it was work and lake when I could and nothing else. I excelled at work. It was the one part of life I was good at. Not social life. No girlfriend or wife. I worked six and seven days a week often and many 12-14 hour days. I didn't allow those who worked for me to do that but I did.
Then one foggy Christmas eve.....no
Then one fall winter eve, I met someone who turned my world inside out, upside down, and completely around. From that day forward, work was not my number one priority, enjoying life with her was. I changed from a depressed sullen businessman to the happiest man on earth. Became more productive too.
I'm retired now, but will tell anyone to not wait for retirement to enjoy life. You don't know when it will come. If you have kids spend time with them. Spend time with your spouse. Spend time doing those things you enjoy most.
Whether you call it the Protestant Work Ethic or the American Way or a Performance Oriented Society, it's wrong and misguided. Families in the US spend less time together than any other western country. People in the US work hours that are illegal in France. We're not more productive, we just work more. Our divorce rates certainly reflect it. Even more the children who don't really know one of their parents even though the parents are together. I've never heard a parent look back and say they regret spending so much time with their kids, but the majority today regret not having more time with their kids.
Boating is a great family activity. Shouldn't just be for retirement. Start young enough and your kids will want to be doing it with you. Instead of running off doing other things with their friends, they'll be bringing friends to join you on the boat.
The very day we realized we could retire, we both submitted our resignation notices. Retirement isn't boating or any other specific activity, it's the freedom to do what you want. We did less boating this year than the last four because we got involved with hurricane recoveries. I don't regret one moment we chose that over boating.
After meeting the smart one of the family, I turned down job opportunities I probably would not have before. Not because she wanted to say no, but because I did. I was happy with my life and wasn't going to risk that for money or prestige.
In my dream world, people don't work more than 40 hours a week. In our business, it's against policy to ever exceed 45 without ownership approval and the only time we've approved it was the two weeks after Irma. No one should get less than two weeks vacation and 8-10 holidays a year and those with years of service or experience should get far more. In most of the rest of the western world 5-6 weeks is normal. The worst fear of European companies is being acquired by a US company. Why? Lack of respect for personal time. Anyone over 40 years old should be getting at least 4 weeks a year vacation, in my opinion. But then we must have the huge houses and the two fancy cars and all the rest it seems. We have larger homes and more square footage per person, around double that of all the rest of the world, except for Australia.
If your life balance isn't what you wish it was, than all I can say is "Change It."
Enough time on the boat? We don't have enough hours in the day, enough days in the year, for all we'd like to do in life. We enjoy life too much. But reasonably we have enough time on the water and when we still worked we did. In the summer, we'd get out on the water two to three afternoons a week. What allowed that? I left the office at 5:00 PM. We took our vacations on the water and every year at that time of salary increases, I never asked for more salary than offered, but often for more vacation. More, I actually took my vacation time and did so as scheduled so it was when she was off too. We averaged 80+ days a year where we spent the day or most of it on the water and 40+ days a year where we got out in the afternoon for a couple of hours. Now we average 280 days a year.
The real question isn't do you spend enough time boating but do you spend enough leisure time with those you love, family and friends, and enough time doing the things you love to do.
That time will never come unless you're proactive in making it happen.
not enough for tennis or concerts or sports you love to watch, not enough for comedy or laughing, not enough time with kids, not enough time with elderly, not enough time helping others...just not enough time....
