Unshackling my life

Wow.

I can hardly believe I'm more than half a year into my "early retirement" - at least my retirement from a full-time desk job. I still take some contract work with the same company, but I've now got much more time to live life on my own terms - without the shackles of a permanent office job, but still while bringing in a decent income.

Over recent weeks, I haven't spent as much time working on this website as I'd like to. My time has been taken up by trying to get a YouTube channel organised, and - ironically - working. I still work as it provides a useful income and I want to maintain a good relationship with my (old) employer. I have a strong belief that hard work is an essential part of human existence, and believe it has a major role to play in retirement. For me, the classical ideas of retirement are not appealing - I need to be constantly engaged in some activity or process of self development to be happy. I consider the contract work as the continued development of my professional career - and is something I want to continue building upon - with much the same approach taken for my physical and mental health, along with my financial literacy, personal projects and charitable giving.

The work I do is tough - very early starts with high, sustained intensity throughout the day. Too much for me to do full-time, but I find working part-time in this manner more sustainable - and I find the time off work I get to be far more rewarding than if I decided to quit completely.

So, recent weeks have been busier than average with work. I've also prioritised other personal projects and self-development goals ahead of building this website. I've been reading a lot too - one of my goals over the last couple of years has been to read a lot more. At least a book a month, on average - year to date, I've read 14 books, so am more than achieving this goal! This is one of my proudest personal achievements. I'm also spending a lot more time in the gym, and getting quality exercise in general.

Over the past couple of months, I've read several amazing books. Two stand out: Outlive by Peter Attia, and The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins.

Outlive focusses on the science behind living the ultimate healthy life - one which extends your healthspan and lifespan as much as possible. It gives you the tools you need to live a long, happy and healthy life. Want to run a marathon at age 90? Then this is the book for you.

The Simple Path to Wealth is, hands down, the best book on personal finance and investing I've ever read. I wish I'd read it years ago when the whole topic was much newer to me. The book simply and elegantly lays out what, in my opinion (and that of the author), is the easiest and most efficient way to accumulate significant wealth throughout life.

I strongly recommend both books and they come with my highest praise. They probably both deserve blogs of their own.

Lately, I have been struggling knowing in which direction I want to take this website in. I've had internal battles in my mind questioning whether the name is right, and whether it encapsulates the mission of the website properly. I thought of changing the name for a time - even building an entirely new website from scratch. But I don't want to erase all the hard work I've already put in. And I feel in the end that the name Consider The Climate really does capture my mission - to encourage people to lead more sustainable, intentional lifestyles, with better financial literacy and choices made which put the environment and the climate first.

These are all things which fundamentally motivate me and I find interesting - I've just not been prioritising development of this website lately. I will hope to change that over future weeks but even so, I intend this site to become a long-term project that I continue to gradually build over many years.

So stick around, there's a long and exciting road of development ahead!