until then...

In feb, I went to kathmandu to meet my folks and then ofcourse to the mountains :). I was away from this busy n complicatedly advanced city life. Being in the green world of nature, mountain, fresh air, pure water and beautiful people who live simple life ..their smiling faces, warm n hospitable culture and a happy attitude. Sometimes I feel lil sad coz I just can't go up there whenever i feel like. It's always a long wait. Whenever i get there i ask myself "when possibly will i get to live this kind of simple, content, peaceful life in the arms of the mountains and close to the beauty of nature?"..and the answers obviously is .."Not before I retire". Well.. we land up where we find our means of making a living and that shapes up this whole thing called our life.

About three months back mermaid, me and my family had gone to my bro's Monastery. It's a pretty lovely place. My bro took me and mermy to his place and we went up on the terrace. It was a lovely evening, we could see the sun setting slowly, it was breezy, we got a 360 degree view of the place with small hills around and corn farms spread across surrounding the monastery. Mermy said ' I wish we could live in such a place', and I said the same. And then finally both of sort of said together...we can do that probably only after we retire, so lets work hard now to get to retirement.This place is just 4-5 hrs away from our city and yet we felt that it's beyond our reach to think of living in such a place for now , it might take another 15-20 yrs or so...

So yes..I'm waiting for my retirement [from the corporate job ]. Well, the moment people hear this, many might just label me as being lazy or unambitious to think like that right now when i'm still at the initial phase of my career. And our elders would react saying ' You are still young and have a long way to go , this is the time for you to work hard.. during our times we did this & that ..the typical way of elders reacting & advising :)... but it's not so pessimistic to think like that, because the harder I work now and save the sooner i can retire from job. So it also means that I'd like to work hard & save enough. And the fact that i'm saying I'm waiting for my retirement & look forward to it also means that i'd like to work for it. We can't retire if we don't work at all.

My sis in law's parents were here and her dad got sweets - he retired from his work and got his first pension. He's on the other side of it .I thought it's a long way for me to reach that phase - to retire and start getting pension:). Until then keep working...

- snow

Yes, retirement is something we need to work really hard for. That's become our ambition in life now - to retire peacefully in a peaceful and quiet and beautiful place. I too come across a number of people who think that not wanting to achieve "success", not wanting to get on the top most rung of the corporate ladder - is being lazy, unambitious, uncompetitive.. but the truth is it is up to us how we'd like to define being "ambitious"...

I'd like to retire in a green beautiful place, have access to the beach, have a li'l house with red-oxide flooring (yes, that's a must)... have lovely green trees in the backyard.. have li'l grand kids come n visit me and me cooking for them (yes, that's unbelievable, but what's the harm imagining?)... have hot tea sitting amidst the beautiful green trees in the evening... such a lovely life... wish i could get there right away... but i guess the beauty of retiring lies in getting old, having seen life, and being "on the other side" like snow says. i'd still like to think that i'm young, so will have to wait for many many years to get there :)

hope the wait is worth it.... until then, keep working...

- mermaid

PS: Retirement here means retiring from the corporate rat race and going on to do something of our interests and being where we would like to be....ofcourse work will continue till the end :)