Retirement

 

I've been following a chap on Substack who has been writing about his experience of retirement.   He was someone who had left a position of authority and responsibility and was initially having difficulty finding his place in his new circumstances.  Someone who had probably been very busy with his work and for whom work had taken up a large part of his time.  I imagine this is not uncommon in people who are used to getting respect and obedience and loyalty from those around them and it has to be difficult when suddenly that is no longer true and for most people you are now just another being in the crowd, and you now have all this time to fill.

In my case I looked forward to retirement and was so happy from day one.  For me I didn't feel much different about my place in the world or who I was because I had always just had a "job" - I had responsibilities and I feel I was a always good at what I did, but it wasn't who I was - at the end of the workday I went home to my life.  So when the job was no longer there, my life was still there, intact.

My only real issue in my working days was with the middle management types who were often a little drunk with power and loved bossing others around.   I always just wanted to be told clearly what I was expected to do and then be left alone to get on with it.

I don't think I was ever particularly ambitious about my place in the world.  I wanted to make enough money to live and save and do what interested me on my own time and basically for the world to just leave me alone. 

I remember someone asking be once, when I was a recent graduate,  if I didn't want to pursue a law degree, or an MBA so that I could "be something in the world, be part of the real power in the world", and I just thought, "No, no I don't,  I don't want that at all."