Simplify or perish

Just got back to work after a long, eleven day ,break. As the days go on, I am getting more and more reluctant to drag myself to work every morning. It is not that the work is meaningless. In fact, it is quite interesting and easy going. Its just that the time keeping and stuff that goes along with it that makes it unbearable. I have to catch the company transport at 05:55 from home to get to work at 07:30 and the reverse at 3:30. The afternoon trip takes almost two hours depending on the traffic in Doha.
So what are the options???????
SIMPLIFY.....and at the very earliest. In a way I think I am already on that path. The other day somebody commented on my mobile phone. Not in a flattering sense but a little like "What on earth is that"? It didn't help that it happens to be the cheapest phone available in Carrefour. All of 89 Riyals. But that thing works like a dream. Never drops a call, battery lasts forever and the alarm has three types of alerts. What more could anybody who needs a phone ask for? Beats me......
The earlier phone I had broke down (It was a fancy one with a full size keyboard and black berry and all the other bells and whistles. Never mind that I bought it at a sale before the company, Siemens, fired all its employees and rolled the shutters down on the business !)and I resisted the urge to run out and buy the Iphone. Instead I started with the spare phone we kept at home and found that it was perfectly good for what I had in mind for it.
A friend of mine was looking like his world had come to an end the other day. He said he had planned on retirement soon, he is 59, but is reviewing his decision in the light of what is happening around the world today. It appears that his house in the UK had a fresh mortgage taken out a few years back to extend the building. He had parked the money with one of those fancy investment houses that promise to invest the capital for you and pay your mortgage instalments every month. Since July the investment house has lost a chunk of S's capital and now S has to chip in very month to make up the difference on the instalment. So much for his retirement plans. He looks good for another 3 or 4 years of hard labour... A plain vanilla mortgage would have been the best way to go rather than complicate the issue in a bid to milk it for more than what it is worth.
So how far can we take this? If the basic food , shelter and clothes are in place is it not a good enough time to declare your freedom and burn the office bag and the striped tie? Children..... They are probably what holds you from singing that lovely song "Take this job and ...... it". But how far will you take the responsibility of looking after them? I remember T from my time in Abu Dhabi who had built a house for each of his married daughters and was then fretting about the education of his grandchildren while he continued offshore (And offshore oil work is no walk in the park....)at 62. University level education is probably something to be provided. The rest is best left to them to figure out.
I don't worry too much about L when I think on these lines as we have been through it all. Little or nothing to 5 star hotels and holidays abroad. When you have been to one 5 star hotel you have seen them all and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.She , I am sure will stick by me and enjoy what comes along regardless of whats around us. But lately when I talk about going back to the family farm and spending time there even my long term ally rebels .
I think my simplifying plans are slowly crystallising. The move to Qatar has, in a way, started precipitating that. I give myself another four years and I am done . By Jan or latest by March 2013 we should head for home.