On 1/1/2014 7:34 PM, Peter Klein wrote:
> Olympus friends: Today is the first day of the rest of my life. As of
> today, I have retired from my corporate IT job. I recently hit the sixty
> year mark, so I'm a bit younger than the traditional American age. But
> given the many changes that have taken place in the workplace in recent
> years (he said, politely), it's time. Fortunately, we can do it.
That's wonderful. I retired from the corporate world at 55. It was my own
choice, and I was concerned about my babies
(computer programs I'd created), so I actively participated in finding and
training a replacement. That was hard, so it
took me 'til almost 56 to get out, but I did make it at 55.
> I hope to begin a new chapter in my life where I can exercise my true
> passions more fully, namely music, writing and photography. I'm going to
> let the balance between them (and just enjoying myself) work itself out
> over time.
If even one of these is a 'true passion', and based on what I know from here,
that seems true, you are in great shape.
For the last couple of decades of his life, my father ran a small research lab,
far from corporate headquarters. He was
very good at it, and the lab very productive. But this was back before ERISA,
in a large company with a mandatory
retirement at 65 policy. He and his immediate bosses managed to string it out
for another year and a few months, before
the lawyers got to them.
He had a problems, big ones. His passion was research, in his case requiring
more than any home lab. He had also become
paterfamilias for a family of about 30 people. The crying and upset at his
retirement party was more like the wake for a
family patriarch. He was a big fish in a small pond. There was a period of a
few years when no one in China could get
government approval to buy a gas chromatograph without his OK of model and
proposed use.
Suddenly, here he was, sitting at home, unable to do what he loved best,
severed from leadership of his daily family and
his sense of standing in the world. He tried, arranging space at a garage and
looking for a VW beetle to tear down and
rebuild (Why that particular thing, I don't know.) But he died in fairly short
order, of a massive coronary (broken
heart), while under care in the CCU for a minor one.
Spending 31 years in a major corporation, I had the chance to observe the
results of many retirements. A pattern soon
became clear. Those people who's passion and/or sense of self worth was
attached to their job just dropped like flies.
Those with passions outside of work and a sense of self and worth separate from
the job did well, often even thrived,
doing better than when working.
Just one example. I recall running into our prior General Counsel about 10
years after his forced retirement in a
management change. I saw him at a reading and signing for his first book. He
was full of energy and vitality.
I said I disagreed with AG's prescription simply because it is right for some
people and wrong for others. I needed to
leave the corporate work world for my own health, mental and spiritual, as well
as physical. Had I jumped right into
another 'real' job, it would have been very bad for me. For others, lack of a
'serious', 'productive' job, with
measurable goals and achievements can be a disaster.
Over the last year, I've had serious discussions with a couple of friends who
can easily retire financially and are
getting to the physical point where they feel they should retire, but are
fearful of what may happen to them without
their jobs. That's a very scary thing for some people.
> Wish me luck! I'd love to hear from anyone (either here or privately)
> who has been though this transition and has some tips for dealing
> gracefully with the changes.
I wish you all the luck in the world! From what you post here, the combination
of lots of loving family and passions in
which you are already engaged bode very well for a long, healthy time of
retirement.
I'm coming up on 14 years of retirement and still loving it and life. From very
early on, I wondered how I ever found
time to work. :-) Only two more pieces of advice:
Enjoy yourself, doing what feels good and right to you, not what you think
anyone else would approve of.
Stay open to things beyond what you've decided you will do in retirement. You
never know when the next big thing may
show up. It could be something you never imagined.* Or, it could even look a
lot like a job, but that's OK, too, if it
feels right.
Retired, Not Retiring Moose
* At a recent retreat, we were to do some art/craft thing, which I tend to
resist. I noticed a couple of children's'
watercolor sets, untouched, among the supplied materials. I made the first
watercolor since, well, I suppose some time
in grade school I must have done some? Everybody says they love it! Grandpa
Mooses? I dunno; we'll see.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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