Lawns.

My mother was a few steps beyond the typical green thumb.  I would tell people that she had the fist of you better grow.  When I lived with my parents some of my chores were to mow the grass.  Since my brothers Boy Scout troop sold some natural fertilizer my mother would buy two bags every year and that was the only thing she put on the lawn.  One bag for the front and another for the back (50 pound bags).  That lawn (St. Augustine) was lush, thick and so green that golfers were impressed.  How thick was it?  I had to mow it twice a week or else it was to thick to cut.  It grew in the winter also, I had to cut it once or twice a month then also.

I'm in my 40's currently and today I bought my first lawn mower.  Our old house was almost a quarter acre but that grass was pretty lush also (thanks to my wife) so we bought a push mower for it.  Don't laugh, push mowers are really good for the grass; they damage the lawn less so it can spend more time and energy on growing.  Push mowers are not good with tall weeds or uneven lawns though.  This new lawn has weeds out the wazoo and instead of paying a lawn service $50-60 every two weeks we decided to just buy a mower and do it ourselves.

As I'm pushing this thing around our postage stamp lawn I remembered the first time I was responsible for mowing my yard.  I hated mowing the grass then so I hired the local lawn boy.  I still hate it but the teen and preteen kids that might do lawns aren't as cheap as they used to be.

That's a real world motivation to do well in new career if I ever needed one.  Do well enough to hire a company to come out and do the lawns for us.  Screw the distant vacations to exotic lands, the real incentive is someone else doing the lawn.