All the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) forums and blogs that I read warn about "decompression," a stage in which you spend weeks or months recovering from work. People going through this say they felt aimless, exhausted, sometimes physically ill. This seems plausible, particularly if you've been in a toxic job or see your job as part of your identity, but will this really happen to me?
The truth is, I do wonder what changes I'll see in myself post-retirement. Over the course of my career, I was given more management responsibilities and with that came more meetings. My 6-8 hours of daily meetings are a real challenge for this introvert, especially because meetings mean navigating people's emotions, but I've structured my life to adjust. I strictly limit my social activities - one per weekend and one during the week is usually sufficient. I don't expect myself to do much beyond work during the week - cooking dinner and exercise is fine, but I rarely do chores or work on hobbies.
So what will happen when I no longer need to save all that social energy to get through the workday? When I can be at home by myself all day, will I then want to go out a few times a week and make friends? I honestly hope so, but I can't tell until I try it. And in ten more workdays, I get to start finding out.
6 comments:
My experience, both personally and with clients I've worked with, is, after that period of decompression, your inner set of capabilities and characteristics will begin to assert themselves finding other avenues to express themselves other than work. These 'other things' can be very surprising, as you know in my own case.
This is why in my work with business owners leaving their full-time careers, I never used the words 'retire' or retirement but referred to the change as transition. Maybe metamorphosis is a better word. During our 'work' phase, we are like caterpillars just focused on the narrow world of work (watch a video of caterpillars eating someday). You go through transition and you come out completely different a butterfly.
10 more days - that is so exciting!! I would say the discovery will be a fun adventure in and of itself.
I’ve experienced that decompression when going from a 70-hour-a-week intense job to a 40 hour easy job in the same company. I felt like I had jumped off a train that was moving full speed. Thankfully I didn’t hit the ground hard, just seemed to float, weightless for about four months. It was a really hard adjustment, and it’s also when my body realized that I’d done damage during the former job. New medical problems actually started during decompression because they couldn’t catch up with me while I was moving, migraines, etc. I had been waking in the night to make a list to get it out of my head for a long time, and it took four months for that to stop.
When do you move to Spain? I would like to visit with you again soon.
I am curious to see you go through this, too. I do not think you are the type to *wallow* while you adjust....
I hope to move to Spain in late 2022. Anonymous, I'm always up for seeing old and new friends, but I'm not sure who you are? Email or PM me on facebook, if you want.
As you get deeper into retirement, I think you will come to ponder that you ever had the time to go to work. From personal experience I find life very full - I am able to do the things that I had to put to one side when I was working.
Post a Comment