Author: jrkast@gmail.com

My last day working for pay was Friday, May 10th, 2013. Earlier that year I vowed that I would not remain working for that employer on my birthday, May 13th. I could have worked a few more years. I could have done a good job for them for a few more years. I believe I had support in many circles. But frenzied politics, incompetent management, and a sense of false panic each week convinced me that I needed to go if I could. Checking with professionals about my finances, I saw that I could. My wife Terry totally supported me, and so I resigned and chose to not seek another job. I was 61.

Neither of our children are around on a day-to-day basis. They are both out and on their own. We are in contact with them regularly, and we have good and loving relationships with them. But they are not a part of our daily lives, nor are we a part of theirs. We don’t wake up with them.

Now it is June of 2014. I have been gone from the working world for a year. I have very limited contact with my old work-mates.

I don’t miss the work, especially at that company. There are a few research-and-development items that I would have loved to continue, but I am fine with leaving them to others. I do miss a few of the people there, but I don’t make much effort to see them, with only a couple of exceptions.

So, what’s it like? I can only answer that for me. Here are some short observations, some descriptions of what I am doing, and some hopes for the future.

I feel that, especially in the later years of my employment, I handled stress reasonably well. Terry might be the best person to comment on that! Now, I am having much less stress. I simply don’t have a stressful day. I am not fighting against stress anymore.

I have more time to work out, and I can adhere to a more regular workout schedule. I am physically in better shape. What a wonderful feeling that is! I still have these 90-year-old knees captured in a 60-year-old body, but if that is my only complaint I am grateful.

I have more time to volunteer. I now tutor at a middle school as well as coach volleyball there. I am able to casually spend most of the afternoon there every weekday. I am not in a rush, and not mentally distracted by work issues, and so I can devote a more complete myself to the kids every day. I am getting to be a regular contributor to the school. I get recognized in the hallway and get hugs when reuniting after breaks. I am looking forward to a new school year this August.

I am pursuing several hobbies, like bicycling, programming, writing, banjo, and a little golf. Terry and I go hiking a lot. We live close to the beach, so we often walk on the beach.

I don’t consider playing volleyball as a hobby. It is more ingrained in me than “hobby” would imply. I am playing more volleyball, and better volleyball.

I am alone more often. Terry and I wake up at the same time, and when she leaves for work I leave to work out. I return to an empty apartment. I usually eat lunch at home, then head off to school. There are significant periods of aloneness. This is especially true in the summer when school is out and my volunteering is at a minimum. I have plenty to do, but I don’t always exhibit good behavior when left to myself.

Sometimes I am lonely. Terry is at work. I don’t really have in-town friends to meet casually. My work at school is often me with the kids, with no other adults around. This feeling was more acute in the first few months of my retirement. I have thought about this quite a bit, and decided that this feeling is mine to change. I can embrace the solitude, and get things done that satisfy only me. Or, I can put myself out in society more, get involved with more people. It is my choice, and I am fully capable of acting on that choice. So, lately, I have felt much less lonely, and much more enabled. It took a little while to get there, though.

I find myself, as a non-worker for the first time in quite a while, forgetting that so many others are working. Terry will come home and be full of unspent work energy. I respect that. She needs time to unwind. In the past, it used to be the opposite case, that I was the one coming home to her with that same unspent energy. Switcheroo!

I get to do some things that I would not be able to do if I was working, simply because I can take the time. I spent a week playing volleyball with some old friends in a big tournament in Phoenix. I will be driving across the country later this summer, helping my daughter deliver a car from the West Coast to the East Coast. I can visit my parents and sisters in Florida more often, and for longer stays. I play golf during the week when it is less crowded and less expensive. I take two hours for a one-hour errand, because I do it by walking or by bike, just for the exercise and the scenery.

I am not in a hurry anymore. I work out as long as I want. I leave early for my commute to school, so I have no stress about arriving late or rushed. I can linger at school after volleyball practice. Sometimes I meet Terry at a bar nearby her work at the end of the day, and it is easy for me to get there on time.

So what about the future?

I am grateful that we can afford to allow me to remain retired. I am grateful for the opportunity to help at an inner-city middle school. I am grateful that I really do have an easy life and a loving family and good health.

What I want to add to this is some output for my need to produce, to create. I don’t mean that I want to be famous or rich or anything like that, but I want to try to do something really well, with passion and thought and depth and grace. I listed some hobbies earlier, and each of those has some potential for that kind of output. I have been dabbling at each, and there is the problem – dabbling isn’t really the way.

I have decided to return to writing as my primary outlet. I am passionate about writing, and have been for a while. Not that I am good at it. Passion and ability are not always partners. I have quite a few years left, I think (I hope!), and perhaps I will turn into a reasonably acceptable writer if I keep at it. I think I have a few things to say about the wonder, joy, and pain that is the human condition. I hope I can learn to write well enough to entertain and educate, and cause some folk to think about things from maybe a different point of view.

So, one year in, I am learning to be retired. I have a regular day, have many interests, and feel good about retirement. Maintaining good relationships with family and friends, volunteering where I can help, and writing with a purpose, those are the activities that generally help me to feel that I am living, not just existing, in retirement. I don’t mind if I allow some of my hobbies to atrophy, if I can push more energy into more purposeful pursuit.

Much of what we do on the internet is analyzed and used by others.

I see Gmail ads reflecting the content of my recent emails. I see other hints that my email and browser search targets are being “read”, not by people but by algorithms.

This is not new. It is well known. The internet is an unrestricted capitalistic marketplace as well as an unrestricted information exchange. The speed of technological progress exceeds the speed of evolution of constructs to govern its use. We give up privacy. Sometimes we don’t know exactly when it is happening to us, but we do know that it is happening.

I am reflecting on a recent instance that for some reason hit me harder than others.

We traveled from San Francisco to New York to see our daughter Emma graduate from college. We booked plane flights, a hotel, and a rental car. Online, of course. So easy. The day before the trip I brought up Google Maps to get a map from the airport to Emma’s boyfriend’s apartment. On the map, with no prompt from me, was the date and time of our arrival at JFK, written under the airport. And there was a mark on the location of our hotel, with the dates of our stay listed beneath the hotel logo.

Convenient? Yes. Surprising? Yes and no. Scary? Yes! The algorithms know we are traveling, and for how long we’ll be gone. Exactly the kind of thing a thief would like to know.

As I write this from New York, is our San Francisco apartment being robbed? Google knows who is out of town right now. I am not sure I like that. Seems like an easy hack to get that information about me. Am I to trust Google with this information? Who is “Google”, anyway? Is it even an entity to which the term “trust” can be applied?

This is all above-board. Somewhere deep in “terms of service” I am sure that I agreed to let Google use my information. I shudder at the thought of the other uses of my information, without my agreement, by government agencies I don’t know, with no real oversight, and quite possibly with either malicious political intent or damaging side effects. That’s for another blog.

This is just one small example of the “privacy for functionality” trade-off. Google Maps is an awesome tool that took immense intellect and labor to create. I use it often. I use it “for free”. Well, not exactly free. I give up a bit of my privacy to use it. Is that a fair price?

I am not going to try to get “off the grid”. I love what I get from the internet. I am concerned, though, about this sense of constantly being watched. It does make things less fun somehow. Takes something away from that joy of vast access and incredible functionality. I will think about this some more. It is important to understand the intrusion upon privacy when using one of our most powerful modern tools.