Sometimes you just have to decide when you have...enough. And then be happy with that. I knew folks who didn't have a hobby or anything besides their work to bring them any joy. Once they reached retirement age, most of them didn't last 6 months. You've probably known people like that, too. And I think it's because they lost their one purpose in life.
My grandmother was from the other extreme. She got an associates degree in accounting in 1928...right before the Great Depression hit. She married a farmer, and during the Depression she kept the books on the farm. She once told me, "Sometimes we didn't even have a spare nickel for a pack of gum for the kids...but we had what we needed." But they also never missed going to church whenever the church-house's doors were open, including ice cream socials and Sunday School picnics, either. Her joy then was in her church activities, as it was throughout her life. When her kids grew up and left home, she worked as bookkeeper for her brother-in-law's oil company until she retired in her mid-'70's, working part-time after she turned 65. She then turned her attention to the local senior citizen center, where she helped serve meals several days a week until she was almost 100...because she got joy from "helping out the older folks in the community," as she told it. She only stopped serving the meals when she became a little unsteady on her feet and grudgingly had to start using a cane...she was "only" about 98 then. She died about 3 months shy of turning 101.
The point I've been trying to make through all of this is...it doesn't make sense to put off doing what brings you joy, no matter what that may be. NO, I'm NOT advocating going into debt to experience your joy. I'm NOT advocating skipping out on your financial obligations, to yourself or to your family--including saving for retirement and saving for unexpected expenses, as well as paying your bills--in order to have some joy. If your joy includes doing something you can't financially afford, then by all means put it off until you CAN afford it...or find a different, more affordable way to enjoy it.
But don't put off doing what you enjoy simply because you think you'll have all the time in the world after you retire, or because you think you'll be just as healthy after you retire as you are now. Your body's like any other machine; parts wear, even with good maintenance. And like cancer, arthritis has no cure, either. So don't assume these things will skip over you. Maybe they will, and maybe they won't.
Don't forget the parable Jesus told in Luke 12: 16-21, about the man who made big plans for what he was going to do in the days to come, and the bins he was going to build where he was going to store all he was saving for "the future." Let's never forget that, no matter what WE plan, God sometimes has a different plan, and we may not even live to enjoy what we have today. If our focus is always on gaining more, and preparing for health and prosperity in our latter days...we also need to realize that we may not be there to enjoy the fruits of our work, or may be in bad enough health that there's little comfort found in what we worked so hard for.
That was my original point. Sorry some folks missed it, and thought I was advocating skipping out on your work, or not doing a good job because your focus was elsewhere, and not providing for your family, or going deep in debt to accumulate expensive toys or build "money pits" you won't ever be able to afford. For example, if you find joy in tractor pulling, as many of us do...if you can't afford to build the tractor you want, it costs a lot less to at least go to the pulls and learn to appreciate the work of the ones who can and do build them. You can find less expensive ways to feed your joy. Just don't suppress your you completely, thinking you'll always have time [or be physically able] to do it "later." Too many folks I've known have been wrong about that...some were DEAD wrong.
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