I once thought being a millionaire, even a very miserly one, would bring me contentedness, if not pure bliss or eternal happiness. What I’ve slowly realised…well…I am not that man with those thoughts anymore.

Being a millionaire is indeed a comfortably contented place to be but not a final destination.

Sure, my wife and I bought into the whole “reward yourself financially first” philosophy in order to achieve this goal, using the power of delayed gratification to get here 10, almost 15, years ahead of schedule, by, for example, buying a new car every 10 years or so.

Now that we’ve been here a while, enjoying the fruits of our labour, what’s next?

Unfortunately, I get bored easily and lose interest in subjects/topics after I’ve dissected them and determined their root cause.

Over the course of the past few months I mentally walked through the prospects of life outside the WASP monogamous lifestyle I was trained to support.

I asked myself if going out of my comfort zone was worth giving up my financial status, releasing the golden handcuffs and starting over, once again competing in the marketplace for your attention and money to feed my new habits of happiness fulfillment.

I thought I found the answer in new friendships.  I wanted the answer to be with my new friends because of their enthusiasm and strong belief in doing what they love — dancing.

This morning, in the sunlight reflecting off concrete, glass and steel structures of urbanism, I see that my friends’ infectious enthusiasm moves me to encourage their pursuit of momentary happiness and longterm financial security but my journey takes me in a new direction.

I’ve enjoyed meeting so many people in the social dancing subculture, gladly knowing that those who learned to dance as kids have been able to monetise their love for the body art/exercise of dance and become successful adults as instructors of social dance.

However, the source of their enthusiasm is not mine.

I tried to adopt their thoughtset as my own but I was only able to hold it for so long before I switched to building robots.

Finding a new hobby and realising it’s time to go on to another one is like breaking up with a girlfriend, which was never easy for me.

It’s time for me to say goodbye to competitive dancing and move on, figuring out how this miser can focus his wealth on something that will rejuvenate him while in his comfort zone (cliche is my forte).

Financial success before I die is one thing, still being alive and figuring out what to do to maintain my meditative state of bliss is another.

Regardless, I live in my thoughts, as my thoughts, with my thoughts.

Tomorrow is a new day, a new opportunity to find a new distraction from the ennui between now and whenever I die.

Is there another planet or species I can play with?