Thinking Aloud

[vajrayana]

Background:


Born and brought up in Kolkata. BE in Marine Engg, was an engineer on
ships for a while. Came to the US for B-School in 2000.
Met wife there. Next 15 years was fun, but a bit of a blur with jobs, F1, H1, GC.
Citizenship in 2015.

Current Situation:

After 15 years, I felt differently about chasing money. I felt time
running out, priorities changing, occasional aches and pains pointing to
the ticking clock. Seemed the optimal option was to move to India and have
complete free time and still have the option of a great lifestyle.
However DW (not Indian) didn't feel for it and wanted to pursue career
(makes more $ than me). We considered compromises, but finally split.
No kids, clean split. So at 40, I am single with a blank page.

So I sat and rationalized my mid-life crisis.

Thought Process:

I like sportscars, expensive houses, vacations, and most shiny
things.....if they came free or cheap. But they don't. They cost money,
or in other words my time and freedom. The problem is that as much as
I like the idea of owning these toys, I don't feel it's worth my time to
pay for them or worry about them. And they weigh me down when
I want to see other places.

So am I just lazy....shirking responsibility? Surely I don't expect
everything to come to me for free? The answer is really more of a
question that everyone needs to answer for themselves. Which
toys am I willing to work for...which aspects of my life are worth my
time?

So I broke down my life into pieces to see where my true
joy/satisfaction/value came from. Turned out that I get all my real
satisfaction from good food, absence of stress and complication, good
friends, reading good books, movies, a clean uncluttered house, being active, great
weather, no deadlines, blue skies, floating clouds, overwhelming view of mountains,
watching wave after wave wash over a beautiful beach, exploring nice
places, looking at little houses on a hill switch on their lights one by
one as it becomes dark outside and the stars get brighter etc......and most
importantly all the time to enjoy these things.

I get all my annoyance from traffic, hassle and generally from anything that stops
me from doing these things. I understand that I need to work to earn, but it takes
away my precious time! Work hours need to be minimum, ideally zero :)

I went through the big house, sports cars, motorcycles, guitars phase in
my 30s, thinking they were the obvious things to pursue to get
happiness/satisfaction in life. Found out through experience that not
only is there no satisfaction in it, but also that it is a slippery path that
drives you to more and more dissatisfaction. If you don't believe me, try it.

Homegrown Philosophy:

I wasn't born a prince, so I have to work and pay my
dues. But as I work and net worth builds, I ask
"How much is enough?"...sounds familiar?

The answer IMO is, simply, whatever I feel is truly worth sacrificing my
time for, and only that. Ok maybe a little buffer as insurance.

Time, now, is critical. Because healthy young age is limited. I won't be
up for active hiking biking (and you know what else...;)) after 50...maybe 55?
I am 40 and my joints start hurting after a
game. Since age is sequential, the world makes me sacrifice younger
years to ensure comfort in future years. When I am in my 70's I will
probably be willing to sacrifice my next ten years to get back a couple of
years in my 20's and 30's. So in my mind, the scale is not linear in value.
Younger years are much more valuable than older years. So I shouldn't
sacrifice them for anything that doesn't bring me absolute true joy. So
I won't do +1.

I feel that three skills are critical.

1) Ability to value things based on the true satisfaction to me. Not
prestige, not fitting in, not because everyone else does it.....but
because it truly gives me long term satisfaction. For me it came down
to a very short list, and outside of house/food/clothes/medical/kids,
most of those things don't cost money.

2) Ability to prioritize those things. If I made a list of all the things I
would like to own or experience, it would go on forever. If I lived
and worked forever, I could afford it and there would be no issue.
But I won't live forever. So I've gotta pick a few things that I can
comfortably afford without completely giving up my younger years and enjoy them.
In other words, ruthlessly cut down that list till it fits my budget because
very few things are worth my younger years.

3) Ability to experience with intensity. Whatever I choose to do, I must do patiently, intensely.
Distraction is a sickness and takes away from valuable experiences.

The Simple Plan:

- Not work. Grow worth to get there (15-20Cr...jk!). More likely fit a good life
within whatever resources I have by R2I (Early 2016).
Stay away from Tier 1 cities. No work, no kids,
I have no business in Tier 1,2,3 or any city.

- Make life very very simple and focus on things I value most. Like free
time to look at the blue sky, enjoy good scenery and great weather, eat
good food, read and spend time with a select few great friends.

- Not spiritual/religious, but meditate to keep mind uncluttered and
sharp.

- Go to India and live in hill stations (anyone doing this?). Travel.

- Still need to work out the logistics.

[R2MyOldWorld]

Nice post. Clear thoughts. Good plan. Go for it.

[r2i_cbe]

Your thought process is very matured and towards spiritual / philosophical side. That's very rare to find.

The only feedback from me on your thought process is as follows...
- Given you are only 40, don't underestimate not working. While it may look very great on paper on not working though you may have enough money, after you have implemented the lifestyle that you are dreaming, you will soon find emptiness covering your life due to lack of being productive.
- Some may find doing volunteer work cutting it but this is not every body's cup of tea. Most are programmed to do a paying job and deriving some satisfaction.
- All the leisure work is fun if you don't do it for a while and then take a break to do it. Some call it a vacation :) But eating in five star hotels gets boring after a while. So we need a mix of home food and eating out. You may be an exception and sorry if I come out preaching.
This means you need to think about living in a Tier2 cities to get a job. Think about Coimbatore, Pune etc. There are hill stations very close. You can work in the city and maintain a second home in the hill station too.
- The other aspect is it will be nicer if there is someone to share your interests with you. Think about this aspect, take your time without rushing and do it before it's late.

Great thinking process and good luck.

[vajrayana]

Thanks for your moral support guys.

@r2i_cbe Thank you for your suggestions. I will plan to visit some Tier 2 cities after r2i and well before I buy any property. Since I have not been to India in a long time, it's hard for me to visualize a Tier 1 vs. a Tier 2/3 without checking out all these places. I have a few old friends all over India and hopefully they will show me around. Coimbatore was not on my original list, but now is :) Any other suggestions?

Also @r2i_cbe I will keep your opinion regarding the need to be productive in mind. Work after r2i so far has been a big "no" in my head. I was used to long open-ended vacations with my parents growing up. Later, when I was a marine engineer, I served 6-9 month contracts (no weekends) but my vacations were always open-ended. I never tired of them. So that "normal" habit of going to work might have never got programmed into my DNA! Plus I am a finance guy, not IT, so jobs in desh might be iffy.

As far as getting another wife, every desi girl I mentioned my r2i idea to jumped out the window. So I might have to find a gaon ki susheel patni after r2i...wish me luck :)

[vajrayana]

Outside of this forum, I have not met one desi interested in r2i, especially early. After reading this forum, I realize that there are indeed a lot of us planning to retire (as in really no work after r2i) fairly early. Late 30's and early 40's. Glad to be part of this forum. Found my clan at long last.

After spending a lot of time on this forum, I feel that 99% of people who are retiring are going back to a city. Very few share my crazy notion to settle in a scenic small town, whether it's in the mountains or next to the sea. I saw a thread on Dehradun and several folks researching vacation to scenic places, but no takers for "settling" in scenic places.

People who need/choose to work would obviously want to be in cities, and folks with school-going kids as well. But out of the retiring crowd, someone surely must have had and executed my crazy idea already?

[techynt]

I am interested to retire in a scenic place or in a small town or village. But in India small places have huge infrastructure problems. Lack of quality healthcare, internet connectivity, law and order for outsiders who appear to be rich compared to locals are the big questions that come to my mind.

Even going to my village in UP gives me creeps since UP/Bihar is kind of crime prone due to lack of economic well being, if they find out you have more than a crore in bank, very quickly you will be on the radars of people who would be willing to go the route of kidnapping/ransom to make a quick buck. My ancestral property is still there(my cousins live there currently), about a km from Ganga, really nice place for some quiet time, if not for above issues.

Maybe we need to group with like minded 2k people, who have budget of 2 crore for housing, and we can build our own township somewhere in a small town near to major highway.

Outside of this forum, I have not met one desi interested in r2i, especially early. After reading this forum, I realize that there are indeed a lot of us planning to retire (as in really no work after r2i) fairly early. Late 30's and early 40's. Glad to be part of this forum. Found my clan at long last.

After spending a lot of time on this forum, I feel that 99% of people who are retiring are going back to a city. Very few share my crazy notion to settle in a scenic small town, whether it's in the mountains or next to the sea. I saw a thread on Dehradun and several folks researching vacation to scenic places, but no takers for "settling" in scenic places.

People who need/choose to work would obviously want to be in cities, and folks with school-going kids as well. But out of the retiring crowd, someone surely must have had and executed my crazy idea already?

[vajrayana]

@r2i_cbe Thank you for your suggestions. I will plan to visit some Tier 2 cities after r2i and well before I buy any property. Since I have not been to India in a long time, it's hard for me to visualize a Tier 1 vs. a Tier 2/3 without checking out all these places. I have a few old friends all over India and hopefully they will show me around. Coimbatore was not on my original list, but now is :) Any other suggestions?

Also @r2i_cbe I will keep your opinion regarding the need to be productive in mind. Work after r2i so far has been a big "no" in my head. I was used to long open-ended vacations with my parents growing up. Later, when I was a marine engineer, I served 6-9 month contracts (no weekends) but my vacations were always open-ended. I never tired of them. So that "normal" habit of going to work might have never got programmed into my DNA! Plus I am a finance guy, not IT, so jobs are iffy.

As far as getting another wife, everydesi girl I mentioned r2i idea to jumped out the window. So I might have to find a gaon ki susheel patni after r2i...wish me luck :)

[suba]

Even going to my village in UP gives me creeps since UP/Bihar is kind of crime prone due to lack of economic well being, if they find out you have more than a crore in bank, very quickly you will be on the radars of people who would be willing to go the route of kidnapping/ransom to make a quick buck.

Really? I have heard that those states are unsafe but never heard from someone firsthand. A bit shocking!

[techynt]

What do you expect when everybody over there barely makes rs.10-15k/month if they bust their ass. And they have the attitude to take any kind of risk(warrior blood) hence if they get a chance to make 50 lacs, most of them can break every law.

But if you are a local guy and rich, nobody can touch you since you have your strong men with you and also you have plenty of political connections and police connection.

Unfortunately in my family the last two generations 90% of folks left the village to seek opportunities in the big metros, so the people left are kind of poor with not much connections.

Really? I have heard that those states are unsafe but never heard from someone firsthand. A bit shocking!

[r2i_cbe]

On the safety side, I can speak for the south having lived in big cities and small towns after returning from the US. Like in any place, take some common sense measures but beyond that, I didn't feel unsafe even for a minute. There were times in the US, I felt very unsafe. Once I drove from Grand Canyan to Las Vegas with my family in the night thinking what could happen in the US. There were no cars in the free way and then the truck drivers would tail gate and play games. Then I was told that this route connects the west to the east coast (all the way to New york). The truck drivers are usually pretty bored and when they see car in the night, they would play some games so that they don't feel sleepy. Believe me, it was pretty scary and I wouldn't have believed it if it didn't happen to me. There was another time I visited Cleveland on business and had headache. I went to a store to get tablets at 11.00 PM and when I was out, I saw a huge black guy asking me money. It was more like a robbery since his tone was give money or else I will break you. I had many stories like this.
Now I have driven more than 1000kms in India in car with my family one way and never felt anything like that. Most of the truck drivers are pretty harmless and go on their business. In India wherever you go, you will see a lot of people especially in high ways, you will always see traffic. However, the key is, take safety measures, If you are visiting a tourist place to see a falls in a remote place with women and see no tourist or anyone there, better safe than sorry.
In India, the issues are...
1) Drive carefully. Don't drive in the nights. Not due to safety issues but traffic rules almost non-existent. But these days with the tolled high ways, driving is OK as long as you have driven in this same route and has divided lanes.
2) Be careful with your maid and servants. Don't disclose everything to them.
3)Always be in an area where there are people. What about a secluded place and live there for scenery? Possible by taking some extra measures.