Never Retire: A Quick Check-In on Where You're At
Six months, a year, five years from now—what kind of life are you building? If not now, when? If not here, where?
Six months from now, one year, three years, five years—what kind of life do you picture yourself waking up to?
Not the fantasy, but the actual day-to-day that sustains you? Can you describe—with precision and as high a level of certainty as possible—what the setting and what you’ll be doing in it looks like?
I think our move to Spain has been a success because—going in—I could answer those questions without hesitation. I knew where I had been, what I wanted, and where and why I needed to go to get it. The why, what, and where sit at the core of what it means to Never Retire and the things we discuss in this newsletter.
Never Retire is about building a life that still feels alive in the middle stretch, when most people either coast or complain. It’s rejects stagnation and the retirement lie.
The last few issues have been heavy on numbers and systems—useful, but not the whole story.
So I want to pause and ask:
Where are you aiming?
6 months: what do you want solved or in motion by then?
1 year: what would “steady” look like?
3 years: what habits or projects still matter?
5 years: what would make you proud to have stuck with?
If you’re up for it, hit reply or drop a comment with any of that. I read every note; even short ones help steer what I write next.
And what do you need from me?
I don’t mean “what topics should I cover?”
I mean: what helps you keep moving?
The grounded stuff, the emotional stuff, the stories that make you want to keep building and remind you that neighborhood-level community still exists in this world?
Because if I know that, I can keep this newsletter useful instead of just consistent.
If Never Retire has ever helped you see your own next move a little clearer, help sustain it.
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Six months out should find us 3 months into our “semi-retire” in South Africa (SA) adventure.
Semi means we still have a house back home in Switzerland.
3 months in to being in SA I aim to have some routines; neighbours and neighbourhood where we play sports, drink, take coffee and invite new friends round to our house.
Just maybe we’ll be having our first guests from amongst our current circle of friends fly in to stay with us.
My focus is a bit different, in that, as of June this year we did both retire. Our income will be set and our energy is not focused on income making activity. Fo me "never retire" means that I still have interests that engage me, I'm still out in the world, not having a smaller life just a different one. I LOVE not having to think about money making because we were fortunate enough to have almost enough passive income. I want to focus on making art on my terms and that's the part where i'm sorta still working but the pressure is off.
I enjoy your observations on how things are different in Spain as these things resonate with me too, even of I have a lot of them here in Brooklyn. There are things we don't have and I'm hoping that the adjustment is a good one. I'm hoping that our money will go a little further and that the day to day activities will be an interesting shift and keep the brains going.
so six months in I'd like to have the bureaucracy taken care of, pretty nice apartment and a pleasent daily routine established. Some activities with new people started and some ideas for adventures planned. I also want to be able to buy groceries speaking in Spanish.
In a year I hope to know if this for the long haul, doesn't have to be forever at this point but we're staying. I want to have a small community of people, expats and locals alike. And I want a daily art practice in my routine. We would also have created a base from which we can visit our friends in nearby countries, Italy, France and beyond.
Five years in, hard to say. I'm happy now and I hope that this move is another great place to be happy in.