Everyone loves Reacher. The evidence is clear. According to Nielsen data, the TV series based on the Lee Child novels about a former MP who travels the country without an address or possessions racked up a massive 1.7 billion minutes of viewer watching in just the first three episodes.
That’s a lot of minutes.
My ancient Texas Instruments BA-II calculator tells me there are 525,600 minutes in a year, so we collectively spent around 3,234 years in early viewing. That’s the equivalent of about 42 complete American lifetimes according to recent CDC life expectancy figures. (Those CDC figures might be lower if Reacher were real, given the number of bad guys he routinely dispatches.)
Free of possessions, attachments and wardrobe changes, Reacher is free to fight crime. He expedites bone-crushing justice to the rotten, murdering, money-grabbing sociopaths he encounters while walking around the country.
Keeping Life Simple, Real Simple
Reacher has a lifestyle millions of us admire and, maybe, envy.
And that got me thinking.
How about living like Reacher, ex the mayhem? Wouldn’t that be cool? What can you do if you detach yourself from all the conventions of an American lifestyle that requires millions of storage facilities to hold all the things we don’t use and don’t have space for?
That’s when it came to me. I know someone like that! Someone in my family. One of my brothers.
Here’s the story.
My brother Doug retired from his maritime career nearly 10 years ago at age 62. He’s been a yacht captain on the East Coast, Europe and the Caribbean. He spent years as a tugboat captain hauling cement from Maine to Boston’s Big Dig. And he worked more years as a captain for the Maine State Ferry Service, running ferry boats to the islands.
He’s also an athlete.
That’s why he decided to retire at 62. He wanted to pursue doing Ironman and marathon events full time. His retirement income is modest, but he manages it carefully. At Chipotle, for instance, he orders the kids lunch. It’s only $5 and, he says, it’s just what he needs. Not more, not less.
Selling the House
He quickly found that he was spending so much time on the road going to events in Maine, Florida, California and Colorado that he wasn’t spending much time at the house he had bought out of foreclosure and restored.
So he sold it, invested the proceeds and rented a small apartment.
And why bother renting?
A year later, he decided to live without renting. He got a P.O. box and called it home.
Where does he stay? Well, right now he’s visiting me here in Texas. Before that he was house-sitting for our brother in LA. And he has a huge network of friends from running events all around the country.
Has he achieved a true Reacher lifestyle?
No, not yet.
But he doesn’t need to. He’s lightened up enough to have far fewer of the overheads most of us have. Pretty much everything he needs fits in the 2007 Mini-Cooper he bought for $3,400. That includes a fancy bicycle, all kinds of running gear, repair tools and a wardrobe of T-shirts, shorts and sweats from running events.
He proves, every day, that if you can fix things your cost of living will plummet.
Yes, he has a cell phone. And he’s thinking about replacing his old iPad. So, he’s fully connected. He has a digital library of books and music for when he’s alone. He has a more active social life than most people. Trust me, he won’t be included in any story you read about the danger of loneliness for millions of Americans.
Why am I telling you this story?
I’m not telling it because I think you should drop everything and start your new life as a full-time athlete.
A Broader Message
No, it’s bigger than that. The more I look around, the more I see that a life of abundance isn’t where we’ve been trained to think it is. It certainly isn’t anywhere near the oppressive volume of media stories about extreme wealth, what it buys and how much it costs.
Abundance is all around us. It’s all around us now. It was all around us yesterday. All we need to do is recognize it.
Best of all, doing that is easy. Just leave some conventions and habits behind.
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Related columns:
Scott Burns, “Living on Social Security in Texas,” 03/13/2023: https://scottburns.com/living-on-social-security-in-texas/
Scott Burns, “Rearranging Life and Our Economy,” 09/25/2022: https://scottburns.com/rearranging-life-and-our-economy/
Scott Burns, “Overcoming Wealth Addiction,” 10/27/2002: https://scottburns.com/overcoming-wealth-addiction/
Scott Burns, “Beyond Envy: Wealth Addiction Revisited,” 12/9/2012: https://scottburns.com/overcoming-wealth-addiction/
Scott Burns, “The Eight Stages of Financial Being,” 08/19/2023: https://scottburns.com/the-8-stages-of-financial-being/
Sources and References:
National Vital Statistics Reports, United States Life Tables, 2021, November 7, 2023: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr72/nvsr72-12.pdf
Reacher link on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9288030/
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This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.
(c) Scott Burns, 2024
Photo: Pattie Freeman, Pecos Canyon
2 thoughts on “The Zen Reacher”
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Scott,
I just love the story about your brother Doug. He is living the life. Beautiful.
Best-
You are of course right . more for the sake of more is one of those diminishing returns thing . Doing things for yourself and family is a lot more satisfying and a lot cheaper than having everything done for you . Good on you captain Burns .