I retired a little over a year ago. Consequently, there are some things I miss and some things I don't miss. If interested, I will share my thoughts. Firstly, I, of course, miss the salary package and benefits. In my case, a divorce came at the same time so earlier financial planning for retirement wasn’t beneficial (the price of freedom). Secondly, I miss my long-term close friends from work. I worked primarily with the same bunch of people for most of 14 years. We travelled all the time all over Asia Pacific and India, worked on sales presentations and projects together, had quarterly leadership meetings together and in that environment, you dine and drink together and enjoy each other’s company. They are still my close friends and some attended my wedding here last year. Thirdly, I miss the challenges, the highs (and lows), the teaming, the promotions, the goals and objectives. Fourthly, I miss the travelling. Asia Pacific has many exciting places to travel, and some not so enjoyable. Most of our clients were in the major metropolitan areas of A/P, as were our headquarters. What I don’t miss is the stress of having to make certain goals, of sometimes discovering corruption when the company I worked for would lose sales before involvement in any funny business. There are many Asian countries where kickbacks and “buying the business” is a necessity. We would pass on those accounts. I don’t miss the “customer is always right” mentality or the customer not taking correct responsibility for their part of an agreement. What I don’t miss are long plane flights, 15-18 hours between Los Angeles and Sydney or Hong Kong. I saw the service level of international carriers drop along with their food and drinks on board. What I don’t miss are conference calls at different hours to satisfy New York Hq while working in A/P. There may be more but I see I unintentional balance of the equation with 4 + and 4 -. Just a simple thought process. For me, I am happy and content and have made the lifestyle adjustments necessary to live satisfactorily. I am curious if others would like to share their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with retirement?
I don't miss a damned thing about work. Some of the people I knew are still working just to keep busy and have money to burn. I'd rather have my freedom. Everyday I hear the roar of the expressway cars most of them churning their way to work. Everywhere I go there are people my age and older working dead end jobs. I'm lucky to be out of the rat race. I couldn't have lived in Dgte for two years after getting married there 10 hrs ago if I'd been working. Retirees just have to take up new endeavors. Especially in PI where the infrastructure offers less to do on the surface.
Nailed it! In my opinion one can't just retire, one needs to retire FROM something and move on to something else, whether it be work, a hobby, or what have you. No something else, and most retired folks don't live long.
I have 89 year old neighbor in hawaii and he examples hard work on a daily basis and goes nuts when he cant work on physical labour tasks and mental tasks when his body is down,he says that once you stop,,,,,well yes you just stop and just go deeper into stoppage,although once i walked in on him digging his own grave;him feeling he needed a grave seemed normal to me for his age but I told him that any man who has the energy to dig his own grave is in too good of shape to be needing it before erosion fills it back in..So it came clear to me his wisdom was he was going to be active right to the last second even if he had to dig his own grave to occupy himself to the last second....I think I understand him now and envy his resolve.
retirement at 40 i was dreaming to get away from it all and retire (which i did) at 42 i dream about getting my hands onto something challengeing guess who's going back this summer.......
