The climate apocalypse is here. Wildfires tearing across the north country and killing folks in Hawaii, record shattering heat all around the world, hurricanes in California. The list goes on…
Here is my situation. My wife and I are both highly educated professionals. She has a masters in teaching, and I myself have a JD and am a bar certified lawyer in my state. We have one child of school age.
I hate my job. I always have. Pretty much the minute I graduated law school and entered the work force, I realized I had made a horrible mistake. Nevertheless, I have worked for several years. In that time I have grown more and more exhausted, unhealthy, depressed, and withdrawn from my wonderful family.
Well, my biggest blessing is my spouse. She saw all this, and she encouraged me to follow my heart. We created a budget (it’s a tight one), and I quit. I’m paying off my loans slowly. I’m finding deals and cooking healthy food. We’re not paying for after school. I’m fixing things around the house.
Over the last several months, we have had the greatest experiences of our lives accessing free or cheap state parks and using library passes to enjoy cultural attractions. Thanks to my cooking, we have both lost weight. I have been exercising. My blood pressure is good again. My kid (who had some behavioral problems) seems to sense it all, and is doing better than ever.
My wife and I have talked a lot about this. We are worried about our future. But not because of a lack of savings (we have a modest rainy day fund and an old mortgage at a low rate, but our savings are certainly much less than the “experts” advise). We are scared because the world is changing rapidly. The extreme weather that scientists warned about for decades is here. But the common wisdom touted by those so-called financial experts has not changed a lick.
“Keep going to that job you hate to enrich a corporation that has sworn to go zero carbon by 2050!” They say.
That game is over. It’s much too late. The rules have changed. But no one admits it.
I say save yourself now. Don’t be a doomsday prepper as such, but get healthy, and be happy.
I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if anyone in my generation sees a pension or a social security check. Hell, I’ll be shocked if the economy is even recognizable in 25 years.
And the real kicker is that by staying on the hamster wheel, we’re powering the industrial machine that is hastening these changes to our world.
IMO, continuing the status quo is pure insanity, and the traditional job is the epitome of the status quo.
In sum, live your life today, make yourself and your loved ones happy, for who knows what tomorrow will be. It doesn’t make sense to me to waste my life today hoping to retire to a nice spot in the scorched wasteland…