The American work week is a trap This week I spoke to a woman who will be retired at 5p today and who said she and her husband haven t taken a vacation in 30 years Did that make your stomach turn It did mine When I graduated college my uncle congratulated me and followed it up with Now you re going to work the next 40 years until you retire And even though I d always known this was the normal course of life that realization terrified me and inspired me to start plotting a different course 5 years later Tim and I each saved up enough money from our h i g h -pressure and f a s t -paced software jobs to quit the company and spend a year traveling the world to all 7 continents This was 10 years ago now!