Recently had a heart attack at 42. I ditched every goal and FIRED
I had a heart attack on my birthday. I was 42. Took me a while to reach the cath lab as it was in need of repairs and I wasn’t high priority enough to transfer. So I spent that day, nearly two days, fully conscious, nothing much to do than research and overinterpret population level data on stents and 5 year survival rates.
That bit is all a bit of a blur, but the bit I remember more clearly is just after being told I could go home. I watched a sitcom and it was just so funny, i was too wired to even doomscroll waiting for the op. But now the jokes were so much funnier I had to muffle my laughter out of respect for the ward
I had been hardcore saver. About 95% of my net worth was stashed away, never spent anything. about 5% of my net worth to housing for context. But after the op I still didn’t have any really sense of what I did want to spend it on. But I knew pretty clearly what I didn’t want to do .
I didn’t want to manage people, i didn’t want to miss out on my kids growing up, i didn’t want to stay up till 3 in the morning working on ways to adapt to AI challenges. I just wound down everything as fast as I could. And now i’m on the otherside, making lunch from homegrown veg and generally living a more simple natural life.
Also didn’t want to end up like my dad, working into late 60s to save up money that ended up just paying for a slightly better care home for 3 years.
I’m still awaiting the higher purpose, the ‘optimum’ goal to have in early retirement. But I have a fair chunks time tied up figuring out what ‘not’ to do.
Anyway not sure why i wrote this today, just realised i’d never shared this ‘publicly before’. Feels okay.