Some of you don’t believe me that it’s better to retire in a bear market, when all is in shambles, than in a bull market. I, for one, found it very hard to quit the money when times were good. I was always suffering from the “one more year syndrome.”

Seriously, as soon as my year-end bonus hit my bank account in mid-February, I would tell myself why not stick around for another 10 months to at least hear how much I would get. During the period when I was told (mid-December) and when I got paid, I had the option of just taking it easy if I wanted to do something else.

But after bonuses dried up during the financial crisis and main street really started hating anybody who worked in finance, I found it so much easier to walk away. When you had nothing to do with someone welching on their mortgage, yet still got blamed for the crisis while you continued to pay your own, working in finance started to get real old.

Then there was the issue of getting micromanaged by an insecure and uninspiring colleague out of NYC. Finally, a large part of my compensation was being paid in company stock that was also plunging. Why stick around? It’s not like I was doing something meaningful like helping disabled children with abusive parents find safe homes and loving caretakers.

Despite giving up all my portfolio gains for the year and then some, I’m thankful for the incredible recovery we’ve had since 2009. Without the bull run, I probably wouldn’t have been able to stay unemployed since 2012. The value of money comes nowhere near the value of time.

It’s sad the good times are going away. For so long, it’s been so easy to make easy money. Unless you’re Juggernaut, it’s probably not a good idea to step in front of a bus. The stock market is clearly telegraphing a slowdown in corporate earnings, and the economy by extension. The housing sector usually takes several years to work its way through a funk.

The Fed has also made it clear it will continue to raise rates, no matter how much carnage there is in the short term. You would think they’d slow down their pace of rate increases in 2019, but I wouldn’t count on them being rational. With the yield curve resuming its flattening as investors find safety in longer duration treasuries, we need to seriously be careful about how much risk exposure we really want to take. Flat or inverted yield curves have seldom ever signified good news for the economy. Build your CD step stool folks.

Enough of being a measured voice through times of volatility.

During this Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to share one extremely lucky event that occurred in my life. During times of difficulty, it’s always good to reflect and be grateful for what we have. I hope you will use the holidays to reflect on some of your fortunate events as well and share. 

One of the benefits of financial independence is that you can try out different occupations that pay very little or nothing. I’ve always wanted to be a grade school teacher, but I realized after doing some research you can’t just become a middle school teacher here in San Francisco. Even being a substitute teacher requires many months of training, exams, and screening.

When a friend told me of an assistant tennis coach position at his son’s high school in 2017, I jumped at the opportunity. In my mind, after five years of unemployment, this was a dream job because it combined teaching with my favorite sport.

Further, the job gave me an opportunity to understand the private school system in case my son doesn’t win the SF public school lottery, learn what it’s like to interact with teenagers so I can be better prepared in 12 years, develop relationships with new people, exercise, and be a part of the education community.

When some people first hear that I engineered my layoff, they get up on their Clydesdales and say something like, “I would never do that. It sounds unethical.”

I’m always surprised by this response in this day and age of zero job security. No longer are pensions common. No longer do employers keep their employees fat and happy for decades. It’s a ruthless world out there thanks to globalization, technology, and cutthroat competition.

One could argue that if you’re not doing everything possible to fight for yourself and your family’s financial security, you’re the one being unethical. That or just ignorant. Quitting your job is selfish compared to negotiating a severance. If you don’t think so, then you lack awareness.

The only way that quitting your job is not selfish is if you were a terrible deadweight employee who was a cancer to your team. In such a scenario, quitting would be a godsend to your colleagues.

Let’s go through in detail why it’s always best to engineer your layoff instead.