Plan for your future time, have fun while you still can.

On top of Red Rock Canyon in Las Vegas 2018

Are you planning your time or blowing in the wind?

As another birthday comes and goes for me, I am reminded once again just how fast time flies. What hits me time and again is how I spend the 24 hours I am allotted every day. Am I making the most out of my days? Do I plan my time or just go where ever the wind takes me that day? As you may know, I’m a planner and almost always like the idea of planning who I spend my time with and making sure I schedule the most important things in life so they indeed happen.

At this point, I struggle with conflicting things to focus my time on. My kids are all teenagers and two will be in college in the fall, all three the following fall. By design I created my business to have a short commute and a flexible schedule so I could be with my kids at breakfast, dinner and at all their sporting events. NOW WHAT?

Empty nesting is right around the corner for my wife and me. Change is a constant in our life, but for the past 20 years looking after dependent children has been the focus of our lives.

On the one hand:

My kids are at the age where they want less and less to do with me. Time to get better acquainted with my wife as we will have the opportunity to spend a lot more time together.
It’s been 20 years since my father died at age 58 and it scares me as I am creeping up on that age.
In the past year, I’ve lost two people to heart attacks and know three others that had stents put in. SCARY! Today, I went in for a heart scan (only $150) and found out that I have zero calcium build up – everybody should get this checked.
Most of my friends have lost at least one parent and many are in a position where they have to take care of one or more of their parents.

I can’t help but wonder when my time will be up.

On the other hand: COUNTING MY BLESSINGS:

I’ve been fortunate to live a wonderful, healthy life with a great family and good old friends.
I’m fortunate to be in a rewarding career that I love and plan on doing indefinitely.
I’m fortunate that I’m still able to play competitive basketball and chase around the golf ball.
Setting up my own business close to home has helped me achieve a pretty “balanced life.”
I have reason to believe the rest of my life should be filled with great joy.

I often tell clients they need to balance their savings with their priorities of living for today and planning for tomorrow. The toughest thing is that we don’t know how much time we have left. That’s probably the cause for the “mid-life crisis”. I always thought I would live to 100, and I joke that I might need to live that long in order to shoot my age in a round of golf. As I get older, I still have my doubts as I hear about people dying young from things like cancer…

In the past couple years with my mortality on my mind, I splurged a little:

I bought a classic convertible
Decided to go to Canada and fish with the guys twice a year rather than just once
Opened up the wallet and started going to several concerts per year with my wife

I’m curious what others have done when they started thinking about their mortality.