Why You Shouldn't Wait Until Retirement to Travel

[chipmaster]

On 9/1/2019 at 7:40 AM, Warm Breezes said:

 

Life is short.  Do what you enjoy while you can.  We always emphasized that with our kids by prioritizing our favorite hobby of traveling with them from the time they were babies and everyone told us our traveling days were done.  But they were never done and hopefully never will be.

 

There always needs to be balance, I think when you emphasize living for today and doing what makes you happy that thinking can become to deeply rooted and result in many of todays moral issues 

[chipmaster]

18 hours ago, SRF said:

 

We have passed several "deadlines" for the world to starve to death.

 

I have read science fiction for many years.  Some of the stories from the 50s and 60s predicted megacities, where people never go outside.  Funny, the populations mentioned as requiring these situations, are lower than current populations, even in the US.

 

We people are simply incapable of predicting the future, we over estimate what will it be like or what we are capable of even for 10 years, 50 years forget it.   

 

Also things are changing even faster with technology, 1000 years ago a person could skip a couple hundred years and the world didn't change much,  200 years ago it was a maybe a couple generations, now a decade or so results in complete change, can't wait to see what Moore tomorrow will bring 

[lenquixote66]

My parents were at the Worlds Fair in 1939 and bought a book predicting what the world would look like in the year 2000.It is a visual book and it is unbelievably accurate.

[The Mikado]

Travis McGee had the best advice on this subject:

 

He didn’t expect to live to retire so he took his retirement in installments. 

[clo]

2 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

My parents were at the Worlds Fair in 1939 and bought a book predicting what the world would look like in the year 2000.It is a visual book and it is unbelievably accurate.

My parents were there also.

[lenquixote66]

22 minutes ago, clo said:

My parents were there also.

I was at the 1964 Worlds Fair. I was telling somebody just a few days ago that I was there with a girl friend on a hot day.At that time men did not wear tee shirts and jeans as they do now.I wore a black wool suit with a tie.

[chipmaster]

15 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

My parents were at the Worlds Fair in 1939 and bought a book predicting what the world would look like in the year 2000.It is a visual book and it is unbelievably accurate.

 

Please do share, internet, wikipedia, the demise of music/books, iphone with world at your fingertips, FB and instgram.

 

Thinks like going to the moon, driverless cars aren't what I call a prediction, the complete changing of social structure and how people behave and the moral and economic underpinnings is what is more intellectually interesting.    

 

[Mike981]

Some wonderful comments on this thread.

 

One thing I would like to add on college. I wish we could change our mindset on forcing our high school kids to pick what they want to do for a living and then head strait off to college. As you know many are graduating severely in debt and having to take jobs they don't want so they can try to pay off their debt.

For example I went to broadcasting school because I wanted to work in radio and had wanted to work in radio since I was 7 or 8. Before I signed up for college I was fortunate to be able to visit a radio announcer a couple of times to see how it is really done and he let me ask him questions. I was in radio for almost three decades.
To many kids are making life choices based on feelings and what they see on t.v. and the movies.

My two are a perfect example. My son graduated with an English degree and is working as an admin for a company that helps people live independent lives on their own. Wonderful work and enjoys it very much, but not what his degree is for and money is a constant struggle. My daughter did not go to college and found a job working for Capital One for the past four years. She enjoys her work, is doing very well for herself, has no debt and is now starting to take classes at our local tech college on environmental sciences (that her job is paying for) and after two years will transfer them  to get her four year degree. She would have never even considered this as a career, but is excited at all the options.

[The Mikado]

39 minutes ago, Mike981 said:

Some wonderful comments on this thread.

 

One thing I would like to add on college. I wish we could change our mindset on forcing our high school kids to pick what they want to do for a living and then head strait off to college...

College is a complete waste of time, money, and resources for at least 50% of students. I would NEVER hire anyone for my business with a degree in anything other than “hard” studies like engineering or math. 

[capriccio]

18 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

College is a complete waste of time, money, and resources for at least 50% of students.

 

Is this just your opinion or do you have statistics to back it up?  What would you have that 50% of students doing to support themselves and contribute to our economy?

 

18 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

 I would NEVER hire anyone for my business with a degree in anything other than “hard” studies like engineering or math. 

 

You don't mention your "business" but to think that all businesses would have the same criteria is a fallacy.

 

I would avoided hiring people for most of the positions in my business (IT systems development and consulting; now retired) without at least some communications (writing, speaking) experience - and the more the better.  Over the decades I worked with too many colleagues, many with degrees in the "hard" studies, who could not explain themselves verbally or in writing.

[squick64]

It is a visual book and it is unbelievably accurate.

 

The r/retrofuturism subreddit would like to see that, I'm sure, assuming it's not been posted already.

 

I have a copy of an article from the 1900 Women's Home Journal (or something) about what the world would be like in 2000. I think it's at least as interesting as an insight into the issues of the day as it is a vision of things to come. A lot of what was mentioned in the article related to food hygiene, for instance, which was a massive issue in the Victorian era.

 

Life is short.  Do what you enjoy while you can.

 

I agree, waiting until you're retired to experience life is...suboptimal. There are so many places to visit--one could spend months just in a single country--and then you often find you want to go back. You just can't fit that into your retirement years, especially given that your health and activity level are going to decline.

[lenquixote66]

3 hours ago, Mike981 said:

Some wonderful comments on this thread.

 

One thing I would like to add on college. I wish we could change our mindset on forcing our high school kids to pick what they want to do for a living and then head strait off to college. As you know many are graduating severely in debt and having to take jobs they don't want so they can try to pay off their debt.

For example I went to broadcasting school because I wanted to work in radio and had wanted to work in radio since I was 7 or 8. Before I signed up for college I was fortunate to be able to visit a radio announcer a couple of times to see how it is really done and he let me ask him questions. I was in radio for almost three decades.
To many kids are making life choices based on feelings and what they see on t.v. and the movies.

My two are a perfect example. My son graduated with an English degree and is working as an admin for a company that helps people live independent lives on their own. Wonderful work and enjoys it very much, but not what his degree is for and money is a constant struggle. My daughter did not go to college and found a job working for Capital One for the past four years. She enjoys her work, is doing very well for herself, has no debt and is now starting to take classes at our local tech college on environmental sciences (that her job is paying for) and after two years will transfer them  to get her four year degree. She would have never even considered this as a career, but is excited at all the options.

When I began college it was my intent to be a Veterinarian. There were only 4 colleges in the country that offered degrees. I did not have the grades for either Cornell or Oberlin and I could have gotten into either of the other 2 but I had no desire to go.

I was in an undergraduate pre DVM program with the hopes of having a B or better average and then applying to Cornell.I never got there.I graduated with a dual major of Psychology and Sociology and a minor in English with a concentration in Literature.

Both of my children are educators and both have 3 MA’s.

[The Mikado]

2 hours ago, capriccio said:

 

Is this just your opinion or do you have statistics to back it up?  What would you have that 50% of students doing to support themselves and contribute to our economy?

 

 

You don't mention your "business" but to think that all businesses would have the same criteria is a fallacy.

 

I would avoided hiring people for most of the positions in my business (IT systems development and consulting; now retired) without at least some communications (writing, speaking) experience - and the more the better.  Over the decades I worked with too many colleagues, many with degrees in the "hard" studies, who could not explain themselves verbally or in writing.

Some moderator removed my original reply, I guess, because it's gone.

 

It's my opinion based upon empirical observation. Such methods of evaluation used to be common before the modern age of "education".

 

I'm in the investment business.

 

Most college degrees are not worth the cost of printing them. At least 50% of college students would be better off learning a trade and not starting life with $100k worth of student debt.

[AmazedByCruising]

2 hours ago, The Mikado said:

 

Most college degrees are not worth the cost of printing them. At least 50% of college students would be better off learning a trade and not starting life with $100k worth of student debt.

 

I totally agree.

I might add that the people we hired with university diplomas in computer science are all gone. They know how Quick Sort actually works, but very few employers need people who know how Quick Sort works. The best are the ones who started programming when they were 12 out of curiosity. No education can beat thousands of hours of trial and error. After just a few years after graduating, maybe 5, experience is all that counts and nobody cares about a diploma. Unless someone wants to be an academic staying at the university, it's an amazing waste of time and money.