What would you do if you didn't have to work?

Or, making your way in the face of real constraints

Life is short. Don’t put it off.

Many years ago, I interviewed a financial planner for a story about getting ready for retirement. She told me that she asked her clients to come up with a daily schedule for what they imagined a typical week of their retirement would be. Many had a long list of things that they always wanted to do but never had time for, and so she would ask them: why aren’t you doing these things now?

The answer is almost always time and money. The financial planner’s recommendation was that people should find ways to prioritize the things they want to do long before retirement. And while time and money are real constraints, the alternative isn’t doing nothing. Well, not always. You can probably find something that gets you closer to your goal even if it’s not what you most want to do. For example, you may not be able to travel now. You can watch movies about other places, read history books, and practice another language on Duolingo. Instead of seeing Broadway shows, you can listen to soundtrack recordings, read scripts, and watch community theatre.

Just as you would in a negotiation, think of your best alternative. It gives you so much power.

Time and money aren’t mere excuses for most of us. Sometimes, we have more money than time, so it makes sense to pay for grocery delivery and send our clothes out for laundry. Sometimes, we have more time than money, so we can cook at home and go thrift shopping. And too often, we’re short of both time and money. Squeezing in something fun or indulgent may seem like too much, but if you can find just a little crack, try to slip in a bit of the thing you’d rather be doing. Watch YouTube videos. Find newsletters that cover your interests. See if there are any free events in your community related to the thing you want to do someday, so that you can get started on it now.

One of more annoying aspects of American culture is the idea that we can do anything if we just put our minds to it. Throw some grit on the wheel and push forward! We all have the same amount of time as Beyonce! Just do it! Hop on a plane tonight! And if you try to argue with that, then you’re just a Negative Nelly making excuses. But we can’t always do exactly what we want. Beyonce has staff, you know? She has someone who can complain to the health insurance company for the third time that there is no other policy in force and thus no coordination of benefits, so they will have to pay for that physical three months ago even though that might reduce the CEO’s compensation by a penny or whatever.

Point being: Beyonce has enough money to buy some time. The rest of us are juggling the two.

The mistake is waiting until retirement to have fun. You might be able to have a lot more fun when you retire than you can have now, but see if you can find one thing that you can do this week that gets you a tiny bit closer to what you would really rather be doing.

What are you going to do? Tell us in the comments!