Retirement Plans

Yesterday the entertainment world was all abuzz when Amanda Bynes announced on Twitter that she’s retiring from the world of acting at the ripe old age of 24*.

24! Can you imagine? I honestly wonder what she’s going to do with the rest of her life. I applaud her for having the courage to admit that she’s unhappy with acting before she goes all crazy like Lindsey Lohan and ruins her reputation. I’d much rather remember her fondly as the cool girl from All That and the girl I wished I could be in What A Girl Wants (Confession: I still love that movie).

Somehow I just can’t picture her spending her working years as an accountant in Cubicle Land, USA. My guess is that she’ll end up writing/directing/producing somewhere down the road. Isn’t that what all retired actors do? And if she hasn’t wasted her money on drugs, crazy cars or houses that deserve their own zip codes, she probably has quite the little fortune for herself. All at the age of 24. Lucky duck.

So it got me thinking. If I had enough money to retire right now, what would I want to do with the rest of my life? I think I’d be bored to death if I didn’t have something to work toward every day. I would definitely feel useless, that’s for sure. So naturally, I’d have to figure out something to do with all my time (and money):

• Write a book, definitely in the chick lit genre (my guilty pleasure)
• Travel the world and write travel books for twenty-somethings
• Spend a significant amount of time volunteering abroad, starting in Tanzania
• Learn to play the violin, piano, flute, ukulele, guitar, harp, xylophone, etc
• Go back to school to learn everything. Yes, everything.
• Become a meteorologist. You know, just for fun.

What would you do?

*Sidenote: All her retirement tweets were posted between 4am – 6am. Hm. Do I smell an alcohol-induced publicity stunt?