Addendum 1. Retire early because you'll need the time to figure things out
It takes a while.
I don’t miss going to work. But that doesn’t mean I know how to spend my days without a place to be every weekday.
Ironically, this is why most people would be better served by retiring sooner rather than later.
It’s also why, for some, never retiring may be better.
(If all or any of this is just too obvious, you can stop reading now.)
At my PD job, I knew a few people who talked a lot about the stress of their job and how they wanted to leave it all behind.
But most with that attitude showed all the signs of sticking it out indefinitely. And while they might not have known it, there’s good reason for them to keep working.
Not going to work anymore means you have to take on the hard work of figuring out what the hell to do next. Humans are not meant for idleness or endless leisure.
Maybe this is why suppressing your free spirit to take on a W-2 job is not a good idea in the first place if your final destination is not having a boss and doing whatever you want some day, including maybe even some other work you love.
If you suppress the creative side of your productive self to have a career, it will atrophy. It may even die entirely. And I’m learning that creativity is a necessary component of retiring.
When I was in private practice, I never made much money. It was mostly hand to mouth. But I was never at a loss for something to do. I had projects, to-do lists, and goals.
Now that I literally don’t have to work anymore, it’s been a struggle. The discipline and other skills of a self-starter may be learned or come naturally. Regardless of how you come by them, you will lose those skills if you don’t use them.
Yeah, part of my reluctance to take off and travel like I’d planned is I have a partner and four dogs that need me or maybe better said, that I need. But they aren’t the real obstacle.
Rather it’s an internal sense that I need to be indoors 8 to 5 everyday and perhaps staring at a screen. Maybe I just need to feel that I’m busy on weekdays because my mind is stuck in a M-F, 8-5 rhythm.
I’ve seen old lawyers working well into their dementia years. I always assumed that it was because they had to. And on some level, that’s exactly right. But I also now think that the reason they have to may not come down to just money.
So, why leave the W-2 job sooner rather than later? Because it will take you a long time to figure out what’s next even if you think you already know.
If you’re 62, 65, or 67 on your last day at work, you’ll have less time and less energy to do that hard mental and emotional work.
The final chapter should be one where you do something that fosters internal growth and self-discovery, and that’s a hard, time-consuming job unto itself, requiring at least a decade. Better if you have two.
If you lack stamina, determination, and the fortitude for introspection, don’t quit your job because you may already be where you need to be to ride out the last chapter.
Día del Padre, 2024