I retired at 62. I loved my job and I was very good at it. I was a Civil Design Lead for a very large power utility company and managed in the neighborhood of 70 projects a year. I had a team of about 6 contractors that all worked for me doing design and engineering work. I managed all the work, everyone's portion of the work, I went to the field and measured everything, made sketches of what I wanted from everyone, supervised the final product. checked most of the work myself, and provided on site technical support, and when I wasn't completely covered up with that, I also did most of the structural inspections of all our power plants. It was a lot of work, but I loved it. I had a great team and a great bunch of people to work for, both in engineering management and the folks I worked for at the power plants. At least two guys took over my job when I left.

Why do I say all of that?

I say all of that to emphasize the point that a lot of times we as human beings derive a lot of our self-worth and who we are by what we do for a living. Think about it, you meet someone new at a party or a bar or a get together and what's one of the first things you ask about a person or that person askes about you... "Hey man, what kind of work do you do?" It's just a natural thing. So a lot of people are kind of apprehensive about retiring and giving up their job, because for many folks, who are naturally driven people, their job is part of who they are.

I've seen guys retire from our company and the a year later you see them back at the company with a contractor's badge on making way more money than they did working full time, so I know the money is a draw, but then you ask them, "Why did you come back?" and their like, "I just got bored..." I'll be honest, I faced some of that too. I remember at my retirement party one of our vice presidents (She was a friend of mine at work) told me, "You'll be back as a contractor in 9 months." i was like, "No I won't either."

It was a weird thing to just walk away from a great job, a great bunch of folks, a great career at the height of my earning potential and with more power and autonomy than I had ever had as an employee. It was a difficult decision. But I never realized how much stress I was under all the time managing that many high dollar projects that were critical to our power infrastructure. I remember walking away from my retirement party and singing that song in my head, "Because I'm free, free as I'll ever be..." and that's honestly the way I felt. And I still feel that way.

What you have to do is take all that energy and drive and instead of giving it all to "The Man" is to now turn around and give it all to yourself and I will be honest, it's a unique experience and a unique transition. I work on a lot of projects around the cabin, I have a huge list of projects and stuff i want to do like, learn Spanish, start playing the guitar again, shoot more, hunt and fish more, i love to ride my motorcycle, kayak, exercise, hike, etc... We spend a lot of time travelling too. I try to take something, just one thing, everyday and work on it It keeps that feeling of accomplishment everyday. And when you do work on a project, you have to pace yourself, because now you have a lot more time to do it, and the key is not to get in a rush anymore, because there's always tomorrow.

What I try to do now is to not overschedule anything. I pick small tasks or if we are travelling just a few places that we are going to try to go to that particular day, and leave time for a nap, or just relaxing, having a cocktail and talking about things with Mrs. Irish. I mean I've kicked ass at work for 50 years, you deserve some time to do the things you want to do at a pace you want to do them.

I hope that helps.

"When I say ever thing I mean ever thing." - Frankie