The Monday Read: It’s okay to take time off too

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Sometimes the best thing we can do is recover I have been much more active recently. That is largely a good thing, but today I hit a wall. I went to jiu-jitsu practice on Friday and Saturday, then went snowboarding today on Sunday. It was too much. I felt exhausted, with no energy. I pushed […]

The Monday Read: This changes everything

RetireJapan Monday Read logo and illustrative photo of newspapers and coffee.

What if you didn’t have to do it, but rather got to do it I have it pretty easy in life. I got a good start, have been more than averagely lucky, and have made a few good moves. I wake up when I want, pretty much do what I want, and have very little […]

The Monday Read: From the R to the J to the G

RetireJapan Monday Read logo and illustrative photo of newspapers and coffee.

Do we need to sit down and talk about a midlife crisis which is starting? I’ve been playing with AI a bit recently (Google’s Gemini, ChatGPT 3.5) and even though the hype seems to be dying down in the media, these things are getting better and better. I watched Daniel Priestley talk about it in […]

The Monday Read: Where are we going?

RetireJapan Monday Read logo and illustrative photo of newspapers and coffee.

You need to know where you are and where you want to go I’m sick at the moment. Either I have a bad cold, or hayfever season just started, and it is way worse than usual. I’m not thrilled about either of those options, to be honest. But it doesn’t seem to have really affected […]

The Monday Read: More learning ahead

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RetireJapan is full steam There is so much going on now at RetireJapan. Our flagship annual live course started this week. If you’re interested in the next cohort, you can sign up for the waiting list here. YouTube and the blog are going really well this year. Thanks for watching and reading! Please tell other […]

The Monday Read: Crossing that Bridge

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Why do we do things? I was looking at my spreadsheets this week. It looks like our net worth went up by 16% in 2023. And then went up another 10% in January. In 2021 our spreadsheet reached my arbitrary ‘we are financially independent’ number. It’s now 34% above that. And yet on Friday I […]

The Monday Read: Blue Skies

RetireJapan Monday Read logo and illustrative photo of newspapers and coffee.

Living a deliberate life I went snowboarding today for the first time this season. We had great weather for it and the resort was playing upbeat jazz music instead of the usual ’80s pop tunes. A big improvement. At first I wasn’t thrilled about going, but my wife wanted to so I duly got up […]

The Monday Read: Death to Distractions

RetireJapan Monday Read logo and illustrative photo of newspapers and coffee.

Last year was kind of mixed for me. I got a lot done, was able to travel more, enjoyed not having a fixed schedule, and had very little stress. But at the same time my health deteriorated and I found myself very distracted online. In particular, my smartphone use became problematic. I started playing a […]

The Monday Read: A Fork in the Road

RetireJapan Monday Read logo and illustrative photo of newspapers and coffee.

I’ve really struggled with my health since the pandemic. Not sure if it is long Covid or just a more sedentary lifestyle, but I feel much less healthy than I did before 2020. So far I haven’t been able to turn this around by myself. In fact, turning it around is starting to feel like […]

The Monday Read: A Time of Dragons

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Well, 2024 started off on the wrong foot! Not only was there a large and serious earthquake, it seems the government bungled the response somewhat by not taking it seriously enough at first. I hope everyone affected can get the help they need soon to get back on their feet. The main thing on my […]