There is some fascinating psychology that goes with working, just think about it. We spend the vast majority of our days doing a job, decade after decade, for 50 years and more. How do you leave that sort of entrenched habit behind? I ran a one man business gardening business for 25 years, content to slowly dial it back as I aged. But at 57 I developed what turned out to be a muscular skeletal issue that basically forced me to retire. I came good after a a couple of years hunting for the right therapy, which turned out to be simple muscle strengthening. But I was retired, the mission was over, the goal gone in a sense.
Thankfully I had a lot of interests and they quickly filled my days and very quickly I figured out that it was a bad idea wanting to keep working. Of course I didn't need the money or I'd probably be back there now but how many people continue treading the mouse-wheel simply because it's a habit? Oh I loved my job too, got lots of personal satisfaction and much praise from my clients, but is that reason enough to get up every day or every other day and drive through traffic, put up with all that other stuff when I could be sitting here as I am now drinking a fresh coffee, out of the wind and the cold?
We tell ourselves that we love our jobs, and that's good psychology, but I also love riding in the late morning week days when there are no cars hardly, I like to stay up till 3am in the warmth of the log fire, sleep till 10am, or get up early and go to the little rural airport and perhaps get some photos of a small jet landing. Or I might get some rusty tools and spend half the day just cleaning off the rust and bringing them back to new. A 1000 things to do, or not to do. I talk to people in their sixties, still working but they really don't need to be, and they tell me they love their job and will retire at the government mandated time (my words). Thinking of retiring and actually living retired from work are two starkly different things and no one still working could really understand what it's like to be retired, especially at an age where you don't need a wheelie walker or a nurse to spoon porridge into your mouth
