I tend to do a lot of research before making decisions. I often have second (and third) thoughts about even minor choices. Was that really the best sleep sofa for our den? Maybe we should have looked in a couple of more stores? So I’m pleasantly surprised that I’m not second-guessing my decision to retire later this month after 40+ years of full-time work, even though it was pretty sudden. The week before Memorial Day, I was planning to work at least another year. The Tuesday after, I was ready to give notice. Nothing terrible or unusual had happened either at work or in my life. It just felt like time to move on.
I still do have the occasional pang. There are people I’ll miss – some I’ll stay in touch with, but others I know are work relationships that will wither without a common workplace bond. There are interesting challenges I’ll miss. And, yes, I’ll also miss the thanks and praise I received from people whose problems I helped solve. But I’m ready to wean myself off of that.
One of my early post-full-time-work goals is to stop craving external validation from my job. Family, friends, community, hobbies, learning for the joy of it – I want those at the forefront.
Being an American of a certain era, my identity has been wrapped up in my profession. “What do you do?” morphed too easily into “Who are you?” One of the jarring things about retiring in America will be losing that professional identity. But it doesn’t seem to be that way everywhere.
It was eye opening for me back in the ’80s when I first made friends in Europe and realized what a different outlook on work and life many of them had. I was shocked to find out that in some places it’s borderline rude to ask people what they do for a living when meeting them! I still remember a young ham radio operator in eastern Europe asking me not about my vocation, but my favorite poets. That would hardly have been a typical American encounter in the “greed is good” era of the late ’80s/early ’90s. Even people who weren’t fishing around trying to figure out how much you earned were still interested in what you did at work.
I don’t regret the career I had. I’m proud of much of the journalism I did, stories I broke, and things I wrote that helped reporters and many others learn to better analyze data. I (mostly) don’t regret the energy I poured into my work over the years, even though I certainly could have been better about work-life balance. You can’t easily create something of value without putting time and effort in. I just don’t want my life revolving around full-time paid work anymore. It’s been a very big part of me, but it isn’t me. It’s time for my next chapter.
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