In my 20s and 30s, Scott was overly career-focused. Kim homeschooled our two kids. A turning point came when Scott was fired at 41. It stung but ultimately became one of the best things to happen to us. It took some time to recenter, diving into entrepreneurship and discovering a healthier work-life balance. Yet, we still catch ourselves turning up the work treadmill to “get more stuff.”

We turn 50 this year and celebrate our 30th anniversary in May 2025. It feels like the right time to step off the work treadmill for a while. So, from now until May 2025, we will not work and focus on living.

Our decision-making involved numerous Excel sheets and PowerPoint presentations (with kick-ass graphs), assessing the financial impact of taking a year off and its effect on our retirement. We also dug deep into the statistics about our individual expected healthspan and lifespan and what we can do about it. We felt the need to focus on prioritizing our physical, mental, and relational health—a deliberate choice to utilize some of our retirement now, recognizing the unpredictability of life and that life's value isn't defined by work or my need for “more stuff.”

We plan to chronicle our experiences and learnings during this hiatus from the American Hedonic Treadmill— a constant chase for more pleasure and stuff. We share this in hopes of reflecting for our own benefit and learning from others with different treadmills.

Here's a chart, with a row representing each year of our lives and a column for every week—an illustration of life's brevity. We can never be sure when they will end, so we'll step off the treadmill for a bit to enjoy them.

We will try to post on Instagram (here) but we are in our 50’s now and really don’t understand the difference between a Reel, Post and a Story.