There’s a path that most of us are taught to follow. Go to school, get a good job, buy a house, get a mortgage. Work hard for 40 or 50 years, and then, someday, when you’re 70 years old, you can finally retire and live your life. It’s presented as the blueprint for a successful life. But recently, my wife and I started asking a dangerous question: What is the true cost of that path?

What if the cost is a life you are too busy, too stressed, or too tired to actually live? What if the cost is missing the best years of your children’s lives?

We looked at the numbers, we looked at our lives, and we decided the price was too high. We are choosing a different path. This is why.

The Problem of “Time Poverty”

I have a good job in the Alaskan oilfields. It allows me to provide for my family. But the reality of that job is that I am gone for six weeks at a time, followed by two weeks at home. Those two weeks at home may seem like a long time, but they are a frantic rush of errands, chores, and trying to cram in a month’s worth of connection before I leave again. I don’t want to miss weeks or months of my child’s life, only to see them in a blur.

Even for those with a “normal” 9-to-5, the reality isn’t much different. You get a few tired hours in the evening after a long commute, and weekends that are quickly filled with catching up on housework. We have become financially rich but “time poor.” We are sacrificing our most precious, non-renewable resource—time with our families—for a future that is never guaranteed.

We don’t want to wait to live our life.

The Problem with a “Cookie-Cutter” Education

We also looked at the path laid out for our children. A system of “cookie-cutter” schools that often feel more focused on teaching how to pass standardized tests than on fostering curiosity, resilience, and a love of learning. We believe our children’s education should be as big as the world itself.

Instead of a classroom, we want to give them a “world-schooling” education. We want them to learn geography by sailing to new islands, learn Spanish by speaking with locals in a new port, learn biology by studying a coral reef, and learn about culture by experiencing it firsthand. We want to teach them not just what to learn, but how to learn, how to be adaptable, and how to be a citizen of the world.

Our Solution: A Different Kind of Investment

So, we are opting out of the traditional script. We are not investing in a 30-year mortgage.

Instead, we are making a different kind of investment. We are embarking on a deliberate, 5-year plan to save aggressively, learn everything we can, and prepare to move our family onto a sailboat.

This boat is not an escape. It is our new home. It is our children’s school. And it is the vehicle that will allow us to trade a life of scheduled scarcity for a life of intentional togetherness. It is our investment in a “worthy life.”

This is our long tack.