In this report, I share Retirement Good Thinking and Bad Thinking for Expats. My goal is to live a great life until I die. A great life to me includes travel, eating delicious foods, and having high energy so I can maintain a great sex life and do everything fun in each place I visit.
In order to accomplish that I need to reduce or eliminate any chronic health issues, maintain high energy reserves, stay positive about life, and maintain my spiritual awareness. Here is how I accomplish this in my life. I have no advice for you. I just share what I am doing.
I Move My Body: I get my heart rate up every day. If I sweat every day, my body will function better. If my body functions better, my mind functions better. If my mind functions better, my life is better. There is no more simple truth that a body permanently at rest is slowly dying. A body in motion stays in motion and lives a longer healthier life.
So I start every day getting my heart rate up, and I sweat. I don’t need to win any body-building contest in order to improve my health. I don’t quit moving just because I don’t have six-pack abs.
The most important thing I do to improve my life is to set a routine that I follow 5 days a week that involves moving around and sweating. Once I have done that, every other part of my life is better. If I take even a week off, I can feel my energy level drop.
The hormones I create in my body by moving, improve my attitude, my energy, and my overall passion for life. So I start 5 days a week by moving and sweating to my routines.
I vary my routines from time to time. If you are wondering how I decide on what routines move my body, I will cover that in a minute when I talk about positive rabbit holes.
Eat Real Food: The second most important thing I do to live until retirement and long after is to start eating real food.
Real food is whole foods from nature. Real food is fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, beans, fish, and animals that humans have hunted in nature for centuries. I am a vegetarian, but you don’t need to be. Real food works, period. So what is fake food?
Fake food is from companies, not nature. Fake food comes in boxes, bags, bottles, and cans. Fake foods have a long list of ingredients I can’t pronounce. Those ingredients were added so fake food could sit on the shelf for months or years without going bad.
Fake food kills slowly causing cancer, constipation, obesity, dehydration, diabetes, strokes, and heart disease, among other things. So stay away from fake foods made by men with lists of ingredients. Buy real foods in real markets from real people.
When people switch to real foods, many find that their chronic health problems just seem to fade away. But don’t stop any meds before talking to your doctor.
One last thing for real foods. Fresh is often healthier than cooked. Cooked vegetables and fruit is almost as good, but fresh is still better. So eat berries instead of berry pies, and eat carrots before carrot soup. But carrot soup is still better than potato chips and baked potatoes are better than french fries.
Create real food habits in your life. Have them ready and nearby instead of waiting until you are hungry. If you have real foods nearby and nibble on them even before you are hungry, you are less likely to binge on fake foods. If you wait until you are hungry, you will suddenly have a craving for fake foods. Eat real foods before the fake cravings.
If you can do these first two things, move your body and eat real food, you won’t believe how much energy you will have after 30 days. You will have the crazy energy that will propel you into living an amazing life.
Manage Stress Triggers: Did you know that if you spend time focused on bad things happening in the world, you are killing yourself?
Fear is the most powerful emotion. Fear is designed to ensure our survival as a species from harm. Fear sends signals down your spine to your heart and intestines, creating the adrenaline you will need to fight or flee from the bad things you just learned about?
A constant release of adrenaline is generally bad for you if there is no action for you to take such as fighting or fleeing danger. Adrenaline just sits in your body for up to an hour stressing your body and silently taking years off your life. This is how stress kills people.
So how do I manage my stress in a positive way?
I reduce sources of bad news that cause me to stress out if there is no physical action I can take to release the hormone. Instead, I focus on learning things that I can take immediate action on in my own personal life.
I focus on learning things where the adrenaline motivates me to solve an actual problem in my life to improve the quality of my life personally. The internet is full of rabbit holes I can go down and learn about and take action on to improve my life in some way.
I go down rabbit holes that allow me to improve my health, my well-being, or the world around me in some positive way.
Positive Rabbit Holes: I go down positive rabbit holes instead of negative rabbit holes.
The Internet tends to offer very negative content. It gets clicks and makes more money because people love bad news. The good news is that there is bad news out there that I can take action on and improve my life.
I stay away from bad news that others just complain about to each other. If you are just swallowing the adrenaline created by bad news and complaining to others about it online, you are slowly killing yourself.
If I read bad news at all, it is about things such as how sitting still is killing me and there are routines to move my body in ways that I enjoy and that will maintain my health, running, swimming, biking, yoga, etc.
I only go down rabbit holes if some action I can personally take will change my life in some positive way. I don’t load my heart up with the adrenaline of negativity and slowly kill myself.
If I read bad news at all, it is about how man-made foods are killing me but real foods are keeping me alive and well. How there are real food recipes that help me save money, eat healthy, live longer, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and stop constipation and dehydration.
If I read bad news at all, it is how lack of exercise is killing me, but the good news is that there are walking trails in my neighborhood–fun places to walk and visit near me. Things that we can all research in our neighborhoods.
If I read bad news at all, it is about some disease me or a friend was diagnosed with, and then I go down a rabbit hole learning about all of the natural cures for that disease that can add years to life, with a doctor’s permission, of course.
So there are good and bad rabbit holes you can go down. Some kill you with stress and others point to actions you can take to turn your life around.
But if you are going down rabbit holes where your only action is to swallow adrenaline that is killing you and just complain about it to your friends because there is no action you can take, I would move away from those sources of stress. I stay away from negative rabbit holes.
Minimalism: When I was younger I bought stuff I didn’t need sometimes. But it made me feel like I was winning during the purchasing decision. Like I had worked hard for that money and I needed something in my life to show for it.
Today, people call it retail therapy. It is a way to feel good for a few moments. But eventually, I ended up with a bunch of stuff that I really wasn’t using.
But one day shopping, when I was thinking about buying something, I thought about all that stuff I had in my garage that I had rarely ever used. That day I invented a new way to be happy that I call impulse delay.
I said to myself, I am not going to buy this today. Instead, I will go home and read about other similar products and buy the best-rated product in this category.
That simple act of delaying my impulse to purchase until later cured me from buying things on impulse. And when I walked out of that store, I felt really good about myself. In fact, I felt better about my impulse delay than I would have felt if I had actually bought the product. I was proud of myself for self-control.
The surprising thing was … when I got home, I rarely ever even bothered to research the product. The impulse delay was enough to stop me from buying not just for the moment but often permanently.
And in the rare case when I did go home and research the product, I found out the one I almost bought was not very good. And in the even rarer case that I decided to buy the better version, I was often able to find the better version on sale for cheaper.
That all happened before I started minimalism.
When I left the USA and started traveling the world in 2007, I was forced to learn about minimalism. I have traveled the world ever since and I almost never go home between trips. This forces me to only buy what fits into one checked bag and one carry one.
So now, when I am thinking about buying something, I start with impulse delay. Then I find the best product by reading the reviews. Then I find out what country I will be visiting over the next 6 to 12 months has that product at the lowest price. Then I wait to buy it in that country.
Finally, I often have to throw a thing or two away so the new thing will fit in my luggage. You won’t believe how freeing it feels to have almost no junk cluttering your life. Minimalism feels amazing even in this extreme way.
Believe Something Constructive: Believe in something that gives you peace of mind. Peaceful minds live the longest. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Be kind to others. Be fair with others. Be honest. Be a good person. Don’t judge a book by its cover. When I travel, I take only photos and leave only footprints.
Question Everything: One of the most beautiful things about traveling the world is learning how people do things differently around the world. When I left the USA in 2007, my first stop was India.
When I first got to India, I was upset about how they do everything differently there. Why can’t they do things like we do back in America?
But my mind changed over time. In America, when something breaks we spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to fix problems. But in India, I saw talented people fix what I thought were large problems with a stick and a string.
Remember the TV show in the USA called MacGyver? He was a genius that solved everyday problems creatively using everyday objects. Over time, I began to see India as a MacGyver country.
After that, as I traveled around the world, I had more of an open mind about the different ways people in various countries solved problems. I started to see myself as a student of each new culture.
I paid more attention to what people of that country were doing instead of listening to my past tell me the right way to do things. I became a student of the world instead of a teacher of how we do things back home.
If you can bring that kind of natural curiosity to the world, you will live a much better life if you decide to move to a new country or travel the world like I have.
So question everything and remain curious. Why do we always assume that something that has worked for a long time is the only way to do things forever? It is better to keep an open mind and be a student of the world even in your own country.
Did you know that some of the richest people in the world think this way? How can we improve this process? Can we save money or save time? What could we do differently this time? People that question everything are called inventors and they live more interesting lives.