Hi Coleen

Yah .. I think your too young not to continue on in a profession. Early retirement is generally around 55'ish, like I did.

Have you looked into other Emergency Services jobs ? Your Fire Service back ground may apply there.

The concept of a big loan to pay off after college also is not very good.

Maybe a personal inventory of skills would help. If Fire Service "is your skill bucket" ..then possibly the vendors that provide service to fire Departments or supplies and equipment might be a nice niche to look at.

I trust this may be of use to you.

Froggy

Hi Colleen. You seem to have many options available to you. Why not teach fire tech at the community college? You are totally qualified for that. The CC in my town teaches it to potential firefighters. You might even be able to wrangle some "free" tuition there as an employee. Just be creative, you are plenty young.

As to my own retirement... I imagine I will lie quite peacefully in my pine box. I have no plans to retire until such time as that. Just put a "vacancy" sign in the front window of Casa de la Jaki....

ColeenM1,

The word "retirement" is misnomer. Look at this way. When we are born, we have no "operating manual" to go by. We are in a learning mode. At some point in life, we have gained enough experience and certain level of financial stability. That is the time to do "whatever you want to do". This point could be at 30, 40 or 50 or any other age.

No one can tell you what to do, or what will make you happy. That you have to discover yourself. Some of us are risk takers and thrive living on the edge. Most of us are risk averse.

May be you just need to be with your friends and smell the roses. In time you will discover what you want to do.

Good luck!

Dare I mention the obvious, that the quest for financial self support can take on such a center focus in our lives, that without it, one can become a stranger to ones own self?

LOL LOL ..good one Dreg

I always knew I was an interesting self .. early retirement proved that not only was I right, that I also found myself more interesting that I thought I was.

Being a near complete "me, myself and I" ..I know no strangers within myself..

LOL LOL ...I love early retirement !

So true! I tend to become my career. I did it with the career previous to the fire service too! The time away from work has made me do one of the hardest things I ever had to do, get to know myself. Become a real person not just a reflection of my work, or any other acchievement. I find it so uncomfortable at times I would like the distraction of a career. I have learned a lot about myself during this time off, I must admit. I have become more assertive. Learned to become an advocate for myself, found the importance of communicating feelings before they become explosive. As funny as this may sound to some I learned to treat myself as a precious object. Some would say this is selfish, I disagree. In doing this I haved learned that all of us are precious objects. So I am doing these things. Maybe this is my "job" right now??? Thanks for your input!

If you are Catholic and are interested at all in ministry, prayer, and community, I run a program called the Providence Companions in Mission. This is a program of temporary commitments to religious life...for anywhere from 1 to 6 years.

Just so you know, there are tons of volunteer opportunities to which you can commit for as short as one week to as long as several years.

Anyway, if you are interested in any of that, you can visit my blog at www.thedigitalnun.com and look under the temporary commitments tab at the top. Or you can google volunteer opportunties and find tons of stuff.