“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ” Abraham Lincoln

Someday I am going to retire, and this quote speaks to why I’d like to retire sooner (rather than later). I like my job and I like being around the people I work with, don’t get me wrong…but I feel that while I am sitting at my desk behind my computer, I am really just marking time. Sure, I do good work – and yes, I do valuable work, including giving good service to other people. But in the end, it is work that pays my bills but doesn’t enrich me or feed my soul. I don’t happen to believe that it is my jobs job to enrich my life. That part’s up to me. And honestly, now that I am starting to come out the other side of what has seemed like a lengthy illness, I have a better appreciation of what is enriching and what is not. And of how much more of my life I am willing to donate to what is not. I want to spend more time living my life and less time “marking time” at a desk.

“Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.”
Anonymous

I am an impulse shopper, and I can tell you that buying whatever I want has not brought me happiness, it has brought me financial stress. I have fallen into the trap of wanting a great many things over the years. Now I am starting to winnow things out. Do I really need 3 sets of casserole dishes and two sets of everyday dinner plates? Do I really need 4 roasting pans and all of those dusty vases? Why do I need 22 hip scarves, especially when I only every wear one? It is time to get rid of everything that I do not want nor need. If it doesn’t bring me happiness, I don’t need it. I yearn for a simpler life. I don’t need everything that I want, but I do need to love everything that I have!

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Cicero

Add a good pair of hiking boots and a path through the woods and I’ll be all set.