{"id":894,"date":"2022-04-14T15:14:50","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T07:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/?p=894"},"modified":"2022-10-06T11:30:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T03:30:24","slug":"894","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/?p=894","title":{"rendered":"Nothing is beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’d spend my mornings at the gym, have a light breakfast and then go back home and do some gardening, go bouldering, finish up my calligraphy or embroidery pieces, have some lunch and then read a book or practice the piano till dinnertime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then of course, we’d go travel. We’d be doing the same routine for a month in Spain, with some time spent hiking and rock climbing outdoors. Then the same in Taiwan. In Queensland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dream retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe yours looks something like this too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except we all know we’d more likely be waking up at 11am, surfing the web, watching Netflix, and maybe barely accomplishing one<\/em> of those things.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think that our job holds us back. If we didn’t have to have a job, we would be out there, living the dream. Maybe. But for most of us, the depressing reality is that we aren’t that organized, disciplined or motivated.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retirement is a terrible concept. It tells us that we have to hustle for the first part of our lives, so that we can enjoy the later parts of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the later years, how many of us would have the energy and courage to do all the things we dream of when we’re young and fit and healthy?
Forget about it. It’s a trap. This is why the idea of YOLO made sense until it became kitsch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irresponsibility\u00a0and reckless behaviour should not be disguised as freedom. Having a credit card named YOLO<\/a> was probably one of the most disgusting things I could have thought of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think about being diagnosed with a terminal illness sometimes. What freedom! I’d be able to quit my job with that excuse and do whatever I want! I don’t have to think twice about picking up my embroidery needle while I’m doing nothing except receive treatment in the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except that I would most probably feel like shit because of the disease and I’d probably not feel like doing anything except lie down and feel sad -oh if I could only relive my life again as a healthy person!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morbid, I know. But this is honestly what goes through my mind every time I start hating where I’m going with my job and my career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve started living my life as if I’m semi-retired now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don’t have kids so we spend money on art classes, piano lessons and rock climbing sessions on ourselves. The guilt sometimes gets to me when I think about my mother’s sacrifice for my amazing privilege, but it’s not enough to make me want to quit my semi-retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every now and then, I’m gripped by the fear of not having enough to support myself when I’m older. But that fear passes when I think about how little I actually need to be happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I go back to reminding myself about that beauty of nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d spend my mornings at the gym, have a light breakfast and then go back home and do some gardening, go bouldering, finish up my calligraphy or embroidery pieces, have some lunch and then read a book or practice the piano till dinnertime. Then of course, we’d go travel. We’d be doing the same routine for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catchmyfall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}