Category: Learning

January marks five years of publishing Retirement Confidential. In honor of this anniversary, I suffered through pages and pages of old posts to cull some of my more cogent thoughts about life after work. I hope you enjoy the recap.

Thank you for making it all possible. Happy New Year!

• In large part, retirement is about making it to the finish line and doing whatever you can get away with.

• Many retirees are probably unemployable. Not that we’re uppity, but our bullshit meters are pegged. Oh, and our inside voice is now our outside voice.

• While big retirement goals typically require planning, preparation and commitment, in the art of the slack, it’s important to set a low bar for the routines of daily life.

• I got my first Social Security payment this month. That was fun. While I don’t miss work, I do like to be on the receiving end of money.

• As a childless couple, we want to spend our principal … just not all at once. I like the idea of “die broke.” However, I would like to avoid being alive and broke.

• We add layers and layers of accommodations and behaviors to earn a living, and we start to believe that’s who we really are. Retirement is a journey toward freeing ourselves from expectations and accepting we don’t have to be more than we are.

• One thing I’ve learned in retirement is there’s something to be said for wishful thinking. I have been on both sides of the attitude spectrum, and nothing good ever happened when I thought the glass was half-empty.

• I woke up the other morning thinking, “I should get a job.” I used to like people. Maybe I could learn to like them again.

• Retirement can be the opportunity to discover or re-discover who you are when nobody is watching.

• What if we don’t need to continuously improve ourselves? Here’s a radical thought. What if being content is what it actually means to reach our full potential? What if being alive is our greatest accomplishment?

• I’ve had weird retirement dreams lately. I’m working at my old job but wondering why there isn’t more money in my bank account. Did they forget to pay me? Then I realize I wasn’t working at all and haven’t had a job in years. I wake up happy.

• Illness definitely affected my professional timetable. My first bout of cancer woke me up to get serious about work, and my second bout woke me up to get serious about life.

• In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t accomplished much. I consider making enough money to retire my greatest achievement.

• Retirement can be an unbelievable opportunity to pursue nothing – and that is everything.

• I’m not one to document goals, accomplishments or disappointments. If I wanted to do all that, I would be working.

• I never get sick of retirement. Even when I read the news, and it’s all horrible and depressing, I think, well, at least I get to sleep in.

• On multiple occasions, my boss said I couldn’t take vacation. I think she just got nervous when the flock wasn’t there. When I retired, I had more than 30 days of vacation paid to me because I never got to use it. Yo, girlfriend, guess who’s on vacation now?

• In many ways, it would have been easier to keep working. At least you get paid to avoid self-reflection.

• Once you have enough to get by without a job, time becomes more important than money or stuff.

• Waking up without an alarm is one of the greatest joys retirement brings. I waited my whole life for this.

Most of us adapt to idiosyncrasies of the workplace to earn a living, but what happens to those behaviors when you retire? Do you still sound like the person from work, or is your inside voice blurring a bit with your outside voice?

My inside/outside voice conflict goes back many years, when an Army lieutenant alerted me to the possibility I might not need to say everything I think.

I was an enlisted journalist in the Army and worked in the Public Affairs Office at Ft. Bragg, N.C. We were part of the 18^th Airborne Corps, which was often sent to global hotspots to assist in disaster relief. They’d usually send a journalist to help with press releases and such. I never got to go.

One day, I approached the lieutenant in charge and asked him why I wasn’t selected for these assignments. He said, “Pekar, it has something to do with what’s between your nose and your chin.”

Although I never did get asked to go, I managed to get out of the Army unscathed and eventually learned to keep my mouth shut, which was definitely career-enhancing.

Retirement reduced my exposure to annoying situations, but it’s hard to avoid them completely. I recently played golf with a woman who announced she was extremely sensitive to sounds. She had rabbit ears and could hear even the tiniest whisper, requiring absolute silence when it was her turn to play. Even the rustling of a potato chip bag was terribly disturbing to her.

I got paired with her again a few weeks later, and she got into a snit about scoring. Rules for the women’s golf club events are rather persnickety. We all keep each other’s score, and you have to capture that information at the end of each hole played.

Around the fourth hole, she got a little huffy about our process for swapping scores and announced her demands for how it would be done going forward.

Good thing I spent my career learning “advanced” communication skills to get through challenging scenarios without injury or lawsuits. Please select the best response:

A) Thank you for sharing that. Let’s collaborate when we get to the next hole and get some consensus on a win-win solution.

B) I appreciate your perspective – and to build on that – I recommend we circle the wagons on the next hole and get input from the rest of the team.

C) Great idea! Let’s pulse the team and see if everyone’s on board.

D) Who died and left you in charge?

I chose D, haunted by the voice from the ethics videos we used to watch, “That is not your best choice.” Still, shit like this goes on in my head all the time, but I’ve learned to suppress it. Even on the golf course, I allow myself to be bossed around because it’s easier than conflict.

When we got to the next hole, she said, “Did you just ask me who died and left me in charge?” I said, yes, I did. She never spoke another word to me.

I hope I wasn’t too much of a jerk, and I hope I’m not put to the test again any time soon. However, it’s kind of interesting how it turned out. I shot my best score ever. What’s up with that?

I was in the Army back in the 70s and to this day, I sometimes have a dream where I’m back in, but I don’t have the right uniform. I’m trying to get to the clothing sales store before somebody catches me, but I don’t know where it is. I’m walking around, knowing I’m about to be caught and in big trouble. Mercifully, I wake up.

Sounds kind of like college dreams, right? It’s the big test, but you forgot to study. Or you didn’t graduate after all. I suspect everyone has a version of these dreams, which I assume are related to stress and/or anxiety.

My dreams are vivid, and I remember most of them. When I tell my husband about them, the first question he asks is if I crossed state lines. The answer is usually yes, many times.

So, I’ve had a few retirement dreams. Last night I dreamed my boss asked me at the last minute to sit in for her at the big Monday staff meeting. Sadly, I had worn slippers to work. I had time to go home and get appropriate shoes, but I was also invited to participate in a ceremony, where I would be honored for something that was not revealed in the dream.

But I wanted to go, so I skipped the shoe exchange and planned to attend the ceremony – in my slippers. I forgot to tell the administrative assistant who runs the meetings that I wouldn’t be there. I couldn’t find the ceremony, and the staff meeting was already over by the time I gave up. I called the admin and apologized for being a no-show.

She starts telling me how much trouble I’m in, the big guy is really mad, but in my dream, I’m thinking, wait! I’m retired! This isn’t really happening. Wake up! They can’t do anything to me. And then mercifully, I wake up.

So, wow. I suspect for many of us, it will take years to completely unwind from the pressures of the workplace. As I think about it, the dreams are similar to a few unpleasant dreams I had when I was working. Doing something stupid and then coping with the fear of getting in trouble.

Um, wait, I think that actually happened … the stupid and the trouble. However, I’ve been pretty lucky none of my mistakes were deal breakers. Although one time in the Army it came close. I had a pattern of saying whatever was on my mind. I asked the lieutenant why I never got any of the cushy assignments, and he said, Pekar, it’s got something to do with what’s between your nose and your chin.

I did learn to control my stream of consciousness ramblings, and that served me well in corporate life. I’m grateful I made it to the finish line and even more grateful I can now wake up and say, wait! This isn’t real. I’m retired.