May. 22, 2023
Read time: 2 minutes and 57 seconds.
tags:Many dream of retiring to a peaceful life, maybe even on a farm. What if you could live that dream now, instead of waiting? It’s possible, and choosing that is up to you. I mean, I recall a wealth management class I took in university and I told myself I will retire and spend my days living on a farm. But I made the proactive choice to do that now, while i’m young, ambitious and able to function well enough to operate on the farm.
I’m not sure why I wanted to become a farmer, but I baked it into my life plan. The objective of the wealth management class was to give yourself a plan, up until the day you die, what you expect to do and where you expect to be in your professional life. So, I recall that I put in an ambitious career working awesome jobs paying me 200-300k per year while i’m a professor cooling, and lecturing until I finally buy a farm with a $3.5M net worth with properties, etc. However, life takes different turns and I spent time traveling and living remotely only to fast forward and skip a lot of the different career things to go into what I enjoy and satisfies me most.
So, I went to live on my mother’s farm which she decided to purchase as a place for her retirement (apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, amirite?). And it’s been a lot of work on her part and something I’m truly proud of, her incredible home in Colombia. This is also awesome for me because the home is huge and the property is pretty far from the city (🤢).
But like great things, they’re often accompanied by great responsibility and that’s the truth about this property since there’s a lot that needs to be done. But i’m grateful i’ve had the opportunity to live and enjoy it first hand while I work remotely. It’s something very few have the opportunity to do, especially at my age during the “working” years where you need to be earning and making your money, buying your house and blah blah blah.
For me, farming isn’t just a retirement plan, but my present reality. It’s also been amazing to learn firsthand how things grow and what feeds us.
Strangely, I never really thought I would be into the world of farming since I was born and raised a city slicker. But, making money while doing something you’ve always wanted is powerful. Plus, the evolving nature of a farm is an incredible experience i’ve enjoyed and has taught me a lot.
Many delay their dreams, citing work or other obstacles, but often, we are our own biggest limitation that keeps us from getting the things we want, when we want them.
Farming teaches a powerful lesson: grow, and grow without limits. A fertile environment shows how things can grow rapidly and unexpectedly especially where there’s a terrain that isn’t limited by concrete. Powerful and strong plants can take root and farming becomes a lesson for life. Are you going to let boundaries define you, or will you break through them?
Farming isn’t just about crops, but really a an understanding about how important it is to grow personally and see the fruits of your labour. It’s something that a software may be able to do with genetic algorithms, but will never have grant you the same satisfaction. You rarely see an incredible feature generated by an algo, but instead bugs you have to deprecate and fix other things due to vulnerabilities. Farming really gives you bugs and stuff too, but these are part of feeds us. Maybe there are a lot of parallels between development and farming, but nothing quite like seeing something grow and literally feed you.