I think 4 or 5 people have asked me that question during my first week of retirement. I have pondered the question as well since I am newly one of the voluntary non-working class. It may help to understand the work environment from whence I retired (that’s a fancy way to avoid a hanging preposition).
For the last 27 years my typical workday consisted of back-to-back meetings with no open spaces in between. It was normal to bee scheduled into several meetings simultaneously which created the need to prioritize which meeting I would attend. My personal record for simultaneous meetings was seven-wide on my calendar and while some may have found that stress-inducing, I just laughed at it the day I saw it. Never having learned the skill of being in multiple places simultaneously, I refused to worry about being somewhere I couldn’t possibly be. Granted, it took several years, maybe more than 10, for me to reach that level of insight. Before then, I was eating myself alive with self-induced yet unnecessary stress over ‘where I wasn’t’. This environment caused the creation of Bennett’s Rules for Meetings and was the genesis of many thoughts about the causes and effects of the broken workplace but those are topics for another time.
The ongoing sucking away of my time combined with always-adjacent obligations to ‘be there’ rarely left time for eating, coffee, peeing (which became increasingly important with age), or socializing with my colleagues. Forget writing notes for each meeting summarizing decisions made, decisions that needed to be made, or items needing follow-up. Also out the window was time to reflect on weighty matters or consult with colleagues and an occasional call to or from home or anywhere else for that matter was a detour along the path of each days’ Death March (and yes, there was always someone who would try to excoriate you for stepping out of the line).
The above is simply context for the title question. Imagine doing this for 27 of 43 years. It makes me tired just remembering it. Having taken the off-ramp with 6 months to prepare my transition was not like a sharp turn at 80 MPH, I’m sure the sudden skid and rollover of an immediate end would have been jarring so I was lucky in that regard. I got to take a long exit ramp with a gentle curve.
First Impressions
- It is a relief to be unscheduled
Having ‘nowhere I need to be’ or ‘nowhere I need to be next’ is amazingly refreshing. I get up when I please without being driven by an external schedule aside from my dog’s hot breath inches away from my face when he is ready to go out. I exercise and work around the house on my own schedule; there is no tension to get back to work or to be somewhere else, or to focus on where I need to be next. I catch myself thinking I need to ‘get back to it’ from time to time and then am delighted to realize ‘Oh, no I don’t, actually’. Life is like the Kenney Chesney song: “I got nowhere to go and nowhere to be”.
- There is more focused time with my wife
No, we’re not sitting cross-legged on yoga mats staring at each other, but I feel like our time together is more intentional, at least on my part. After a day or a week at work I just kind of vegged (sp?) out and was not much of a stimulating conversationalist or even mildly interesting to be around. I find myself more intentional and proactive in initiating witty repartee. When we had a line land, this also manifested as: “No, I’m not going to answer the phone”, probably because all I did day in and day out was talk on the phone. To me, a call represented ‘somebody wants something’. That inertia didn’t change when the landline went away.
The preceding noted, I assure you I am also very intentional about staying out of her way or, ass my friend ML Taylor advised: “staying in my lane, bucko”
- I get more done
Being a veg after hours I only had the energy to do the basics around the house. I wasn’t lazy, but I sure as hell didn’t seek out projects. I thought up a lot of projects, but they either never started or didn’t go far beyond initial steps to completion. Granted, I’ve only been a free man for a week, but I already notice I tend to be more engaged in “what needs to be done” tempered with a liberal amount of staying in my lane. Lousy weather in week one has been the main deterrent to more progress against various projects.
Those are the three most obvious reactions I’ve had to being a man of leisure. The time and schedule aspect is definitely the most prevalent one but the other reactions aren’t secondary. I’m enjoying the freedom to be where I want to be, when I want to be there.
Retire when you can, it’s great, and yeah, I have earned this.
Brain Particles 