Like everyone, I enjoy taking a couple weeks vacation, particularly to travel to new and exciting destinations. I’m not one to lay on a beach in Hawaii; instead, I prefer to rent a car and see new sights.

One of the more troubling aspects about vacationing, at least for me, it that it really takes me a while to get in that mode. Typically, about 2 days before the jaunt ends, I find that I am fully ready to continue for yet another two weeks... or longer?

I guess my concern is that I’ve really never left the “employment nest” long enough to know with certainty that returning is exactly what I want to do. I’ve always believed I would grow weary of travel and want to get back “to it” maybe after 6 weeks, maybe after 10. But the fact is, I really don’t know that for sure.

And reading Ernie Zelinski’s book clearly it didn’t help me to resolve those questions. It only magnified them. Yet, it was an excellent read all the same.

Zelinski got his start in “retirement mode” by being fired from his job as an engineer with a Canadian telephone utility at the tender age of 29. Coincidentally, it happened because he took a 10-week vacation that his employer did not approve. Since his termination was unexpected, I’m not at all clear on exactly how he manages survival all these years. But there is no doubt; he is enjoying his new found freedom... frugally.

This book is paced with sage advice, many quotations and cartoons, and lots of humor. The author tells you how to get “inside yourself,” to reprogram, and to learn that the key to your happiness is not things external, but things internal. Much emphasis is given to the psychological aspects of life, discovering what is most important, and tuning out all the noise that’s out there pressuring us to spend more, and to buy “this”.

Here are some one-liners from his book:

• To be a peak performer, work less and play more
  
• I don’t work in any month that doesn’t have an “r” in it
  
• The Protestant work ethic ruined a good thing
  
• Loafing is for high-achievers
  
• To be a Yuppie is to be a successful failure
  
• Leisure lovers may help reduce unemployment
  

I chose this book for your consideration for reasons that do not correspond with the title. As I’ve stated many times, FFD is not a site that condemns employment. And I should know! Zelinski clearly has an “attitude” about working, but it isn’t entirely unfounded.

For those on the road to their financial freedom day, and particularly those who are struggling with it, this book is a good source of info to help you reprogram. I don’t suggest you read it and then quit your day job. Rather, you should read it and then reexamine your own money values (see who are you) to see if possibly your spending habits can be rearranged and thereby provide you with a faster road to financial freedom.

And that is why I chose it. It’s a bit corny at times; but the message is unmistakable … freedom is the freedom to dance to your own music.