Retirement

The process of retiring means different things. The majority, I would venture to guess, believe it is the reward for a long work life and a chance to enjoy the remaining time on Earth. For others, retirement might be unexpected or forced. In my case, it’s not something I have ever considered seriously. Despite any circumstance, I have come to view it as a death knell…

We all have periods of time that make us think about how nice it would be to just sit back and read a book, not get up at the crack of dawn, not be restricted by demanding schedules, or have to suffer under mediocre leadership. Normal people take vacations because they have jobs that allow them to disconnect. It has been my experience that those jobs have never been in my path.

I was out of work once when I was between careers in my 50s. The time off was exciting. That excitement lasted about four days. By the second week, I was looking for work. Anything to keep from losing it. I tried really diving into subjects that I wanted to learn but either didn’t have the talent or resources to pursue them with the level I demand from myself. Money and environment play a huge part in retirement, don’t you think?

The constraints of a structured life are often a subject of dissatisfaction, as we live through it. Removing those constraints, for retirement, after decades of brainwashing to survive them, finds many of us floundering. Sure, we all think we know what we will do in retirement. Travel. Read. Visit family. Help others. These are lofty goals and altruistic to boot. They do not manifest for many.

As a dain-bramaged person, I have the sort of mind that if left unstructured, gets into trouble. Has been happening my whole life. Opening my mouth everyday requires constant monitoring, which is a lot of work. To then remove any requirement for reserve is like opening Pandora’s box. Yes, I can and do function in the world of Normals. Am I successful? Oh my God. No. People tolerate me and my weirdness because the result they need is usually something they couldn’t figure out or didn’t want to do, but I loved doing. Or I make them money…the numbers or percentages of my return are high.

Admittedly, fatigue has set in after 60+ years of living. My brain is tired. I am physically tired. I am starting to think, “How would it be to not have to work?” The answer is always a silent, internal scream that shakes my brain awake. There are many like me that probably experience something similar. One knows the day will come. That time when the work you do is either eliminated by technology, or your physical health mandates a change, or you simply don’t fit in anymore.

There is one thing about Normals that I envy. They are positive for the most part, right off the bat, in difficult situations. People like me tend to focus on whatever trigger makes us weird. Generally, that’s a negative first response. That is not to say we aren’t positive people. We are just used to responding in the negative first from years of being used to determine what is wrong with something or why won’t something work? Often, the answers or analysis we come up with or research out, result in a positive outcome.

Normals always have the optimism just under the surface. “Something better will come along.” Or “There’s always something you can do.” They sometimes refuse to see defeat when it is pounding them into the ground. Resilience. Gotta love it. Of course, that optimism could prove right. It would require many years of re-programming to finally kick the work habit. (And trust me, work is an addiction for me like alcohol is to an alcoholic.) Question is, will I live long enough to see the new programming work? Probably not.

There’s that negativity again…