I really like your post. But your ambition to retire to the beach is a wonderful ambition - don’t put it down.
When I was 45, I was so burned out from working in gray office buildings in NYC, my husband and I bought a small beach house about 60 miles from the city. For about 4 years I walked the beach and climbed on the rocks and breathed the salt air and waded and swam in the ocean. The ocean is a curative! My depression dwindled and I became a happy person again. Then I got a large rescue dog who spent the last few years of his life running on the sand.
It still ranks as one of my greatest achievements, lol!
Oh no, I quite pleased that I have finally won the battle over the marketers and the promoters, and all those who try to put their own definition of success or ambition on to me.
The key is that it is my ambition- my goal. I have no desire to please anyone else, or use any one elses measurements of what might make my life a success. Of course, I'm also not interested in trying to steer anyone else towards my beliefs. And that's why as much advice as was posted, and it is all well-meaning of course, I believe that we all have to find our own way. Many of us find great comfort in joining others, some of us just go it alone.
But the real value of this thread is that we can let others know that our uncertainty need not be permanent, nor is it unique. many of us have felt it, and many of us have overcome it.