Besides early childhood, has there ever been a time in your life when you felt completely carefree?

I think it’s now. I get more wisdom. I know myself and others better and I care for people more.

No car, no kids, 40 years old. There are always worries but life is a lot better when it is only you that has to sleep in your sisters garage.

My childhood was far from carefree. My teenage years were the most carefree. The only “troubles” I had were boys :p

Never. Not even in childhood. Worries and troubles are apparently the necessary price for organized thought. Thus the benefits of meditation.

I haven’t ever been carefree. When I was a child, I worried about all sorts of things – my parents’ happiness, my sisters’ safety, my dog-less situation and how to convince my parents of its ridiculousness…I also worried about homework, poverty, the possibility of a third world war, and the environment.

It seems like I still worry about much the same things. I worry about people close to me, expectations I need to live up to, my goals, and global issues.

Not much has changed.

When I was about 40, single and bill free, I had the chance to take voluntary layoff from work. That opportunity was immediately followed by a $6,000 windfall. I stayed on layoff for 14 weeks, including driving to Las Vegas by way of Mexico and to Niagara Falls via Canada.

The trip west was totally carefree… just driving and seeing the sights. I seldom had on more than a pair of shorts and an unbuttoned shirt and when I got tired I sometimes just slept in the car. It was exactly what I should have done when I graduated HS.

In the middle of my military career: I was single, making more than enough money and had my own place. I could basically do whatever I wanted and I did. I would go to fancy restaurants, go to fancy lounges with $10 dollar drinks that were handcrafted and absolutely delicious. I had 50/20 internet hardwired into my PS3 and destroyed people playing videgames for hours. I would download movies and watch them on my 60 inch TV.

If I was bored I would walk to a bar, get plastered and walk back home and play more videogames drunk and make myself wonderful pre-hangover breakfast food.

What a great life lol.

@ibstubro yes but did you have six grand upon graduation?

The 6k was a windfall that kicked the carefree vacation in motion, but wasn’t key in its funding, @stanleybmanly. I had no ties and no debt – I just needed something to set me in motion. The trip west was the epitome of carefree and that week couldn’t have cost more than a few hundred dollars. Easily covered by unemployment insurance.
The real difference was the ties. If I’d broken free of my family enough to take that trip upon HS graduation, it surely would have changed my life greatly. For better or for worse. My bet is on better. I was late getting the wind in my sails.

I still have every dime of that $6,000 here somewhere. Cash, investment, or real estate. 15 years later I’m debt free.

Saturday mornings always felt like that for me when I was a kid—and as an adult working, Friday nights. But perhaps the most carefree time I can remember in my life was waking up the morning after my high school graduation, feeling as if it were the most gloriously carefree world ever! I’m sure I’ve experienced many other such times, but that one really sticks in my brain.

I always feel carefree when I’m swimming and jostling with the waves. The best!