Never Retire: You Got Your Time Back — Now Spend It Like It Matters
When you design life to give you more hours, the next challenge is making those hours count.
I made a conscious decision years ago to commit to working less now so I can work less longer.
It happened shortly after I realized that I’d Never Retire.
You shake the stigma, then get to work on spending time like it matters.
Some mornings I walk to the bakery, thinking this is exactly the life I wanted. Then, some afternoons, I look up from my desk after five hours and realize I haven’t done the one thing that will make this move to Spain a total success—really learning Spanish.
My decision to work in the hospitality industry in Los Angeles for several years put those plans on hiatus. However, the pandemic closed the bar I was running indefinitely, which prompted me to recommit to my freelance writing career. And—here we are—nearly six years later and I’m working less now so I can work less longer in Valencia, Spain.
Every hiatus in my life took a lot of my time—bartending, bar managing, or the seven years I spent between 2022 and 2028 as a budding urban planning academic. However, they were far from time sucks. Each took nearly all my time, but paid dividends later in unexpected ways.
I still use both experiences every single day in my work. And I had experiences within those experiences—good, not so good, and in between—that absolutely have brought me on the long and pretty crazy road to where I am today.
So—absolutely—there is something to be said for going 24/7 on some things for some periods of time. Call these the formative building blocks of life that set you up to do things like Never Retire.
I made the choice to commit to freelance writing because:
I like the work.
I knew I could do it efficiently and effectively enough to make decent or better money.
It would not be a 24/7 commitment.
I am done with those—I think. I want more hours in the day to do an assortment of cool shit and live a second act I can be proud of.
The Real Test of Act Two
I’ve built the life I pictured, but that’s only part of the work. The real challenge now is whether I can spend these hours on the things that make the life worth living.
The rest of this post is for paid subscribers.
I’ll break down exactly how I’m structuring my time in Act Two to balance work, income, language learning, and the everyday life I moved to Spain to live. If you’ve ever felt like your “free time” isn’t being used the way you want—or if you’re wondering how to structure your days to stay engaged without burning out—this part is for you.