Long day of non-stop lab and class and grading and about to go to a student seminar, despite being despite being tired. One thought helps me get through days like this.
In six months, I’ll be retired.
I might drop dead a few days after that, but I’m going to get at least one day of no stress, no worries about classes in the next semester, and a half-century worth of anxieties will fade away. Probably to be replaced by a new flavor of anxieties.
Retiring is itself rather stressful.
cf. https://www.stress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Holmes-Rahe-Stress-inventory.pdf
(I myself was rather stressed in 2017, but it turns out it was fine)
think you can make it stick this time?
Ditto #1. I retired at the beginning of April. While the stress is different, I’ve never had more to do since I retired. April was consumed with getting health insurance squared away, and other things have emerged now that I have “time” to do them. My task list seems endless.
I am happy to not sit through “must show up” meetings.
I de facto retired when my mother fell down (at the age of ~90) and was no longer able to live alone.
There were several years of moving her to assisted-living in another town, consolidating her investments, selling her house, collecting her inheritances, moving her to a full-care facility after she broke her hip, Covid, moving myself to the same town as her care facility, The Great Flood in my apartment building, living in a hotel for a month, and then she died (3 weeks short of her 93rd birthday). We needed some lawyering to sort it all but was sorted.
But she left us (one sibling and me) a shitload of money.
So it goes.
しかたがない。
Meh, couldn’t wait to retire. I now feel busy, but I think actually I’m making pretty inefficient use of my time (that’s a long way of saying “lazy”).
Congratulations PZ?
FWIW. My parents have never been busier since they retired many decades ago. They do a lot of volunteer work still by choice helping in the Bush with the Freidns of Belair group with my dad also working as a volunteer in a hospital helping patients there and Mum working in a charity shop one day a week. They are in the 80’s and very happy, good people.
PZ, your morose remark about ‘dropping dead a few days after retiring’ really upsets me. Your health is not that bad. You are nowhere near the ‘three-quarter Century’ mark that we we have already passed. You have many interests that should help you keep active.
You really need an ‘attitude adjustment’. You need to look forward to retirement as a welcome, positive, re-invigorating experience. You make a positive and important contribution to society.
Please, I heartily recommend to you, think of your retirement as a great new opportunity to engage in the things that interest you; on your own terms and at your own pace. I would not try to push you in any particular direction. For, that would be contrary to it being your opportunity.
And, you should think about the many people here that truly appreciate all you present to us: lessons in biology, your decent, caring perspective on society, your providing highly valid insights into a number of topics.
I now have a TODO list of 98,293 items, thanks to being retired. I think it will keep me alive because when Mort shows up at my shop to take me away I’ll ask leave to finish the top few items on my list. If I’m convincing enough, I will live forever.