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Is there such a thing as an overworked retire-aholic? Is there a cure?

My alarm shattered the darkness so I sprung up and dashed through the shower and drove to my friend’s winery to spend hours pumping the precious elixirs from casks to tanks and back again, and I left tired and happy with a full case for my wage and on the way home I stopped at Home Depot for some 2x4s that I needed for my bathroom remodel which I hoped would turn out as well as the table I built for my daughter and the fireplace framing and tiling I just finished after cleaning the gutters and trimming the trees that same weekend that I spent working dawn to dusk at my friend’s house where we were doing a kitchen remodel, and I wished to myself that I had more time for writing because pottery lessons and hiking and travel planning and dinners with friends and building web sites and fixing everyone’s computer and phone problems were taking too much of my time.

Whew.

I think my retirement is broken.

Retirement is quite amazing, mostly

For the most part, retirement has been an explosion of excitement and a whirlwind of activity (too much as you can see).

It may be because I’m still in the “honeymoon” period. That’s what the experts call the first stage of retirement — where one still hasn’t settled into a routine. They’re probably right because I’m doing and trying new and different things all the time. I’m not sure I want to settle into a routine at all but I do need to focus more on the good parts and extricate myself from the bad.

Freedom

The most incredible part of being retired is not answering to others. With due apologies to my bosses who were mostly wonderful people, there is no feeling more liberating than escaping from the constricting knot of servitude. No matter how nice people are or how important the task is, it’s still something that must be done and must be done by a certain time in a way defined by other people. There’s little room for creativity or experimentation because deadlines loom like hungry vultures.

Even when you run your own business, which I did for over a decade, your customers are your bosses, and they dictate when and what you need to do. Whoever said the customer is always right is a sadist.

Retirement severed my commitments to other people’s tasks and times. My day is mine now and usually starts with a few hours of writing, but some days I don’t feel like it, and instead, I take a hike to the nearby lake or work in the yard. Nobody yells at me or comes by my office to “have a little chat about my priorities.”

Stress-less

The freedom to control my time has virtually eliminated stress. I remember the gut-twisting cringe of Sunday nights, checking email and appointments, planning meeting agendas, and getting a jump on the week (which really just meant trying to delay the week jumping on me). I didn’t sleep well, and my waking hours were infected with constant low-grade stress that impacted my health and my attitude.

Today people say they’ve never seen me more relaxed. And I feel it too.

Now a Sunday is hardly different from a Tuesday. Sometimes I don’t even notice. “Sure,” is my typical response to a request. The only entries on my calendar are events I’m looking forward to. Visits, hikes, plays, trips, outings, concerts, and the like — with no meetings with HR or Finance to review staffing or budget issues.

Fun stuff only.

Identity

Separation from work means separation from the identity I had as a manager, and I wondered (and worried) how it would feel. It was a rewarding job, leading a bunch of smart people who really believed in what we were doing, and I worried that in my new life I’d just be known as another old guy with a computer, shovel, and hammer, and nothing to do but to swing them around like a crazy maniac.

Well, it turns out that swinging hammers is a lot of fun, and it comes with its own sense of identity and prestige. Even better, I’m now the smartest technical geek on the block, not because I got any smarter, but because my neighbors and friends can barely program a garage door opener, much less a computer.

I didn’t lose an identity, I traded it for a better one.

Money

Like most, my biggest fear was money. Do I have enough? Will it last?

Honestly, I don’t know the answers, but I worry much less about it than I thought. Other than what I’m spending on home improvement projects (have you seen the price of wood?), our expenses are down significantly compared to when I was working.

We downsized so utilities and maintenance are lower. We entertain at home instead of in expensive restaurants. We cook almost every meal ourselves with fresh food from local markets. So far our vacations have been to inexpensive places. We rarely buy new clothes, furniture, or fancy knick-knacks. I have time to do my own yard work and home remodeling (and I work cheap).

None of this was on purpose to consciously save money, it just happened. It’s fun, and it appears like it’s a permanent trend.

But I’m impatient and I want it all now — and that’s the problem.

Here’s my problem

There’s a joke about a kid on a tricycle and a sportscar driver who sideswipes him for fun. The cocky driver continues on, but the kid pedals past him a few seconds later. Shocked, the diver punches it and screams past the stupid little kid, laughing, leaving him in the dust. A moment later the kid shoots by again, white-knuckled and gritting his teeth. The confused driver drops a gear and hammers past the kid, but no matter how many times he barrels past him, the little boy on the trike keeps passing the car, cheeks rippling, hair streaming back, legs a blur. Exasperated, the man in the car slows down and pulls up next to the kid and says, “how the heck can you go so fast?” The kid replies, “my suspenders got caught in your door.”

That’s me — I’m the kid on the trike. Out of control, speeding through retirement zipping here and there, getting whiplash from all the “little” hobbies, projects, and tasks I’m taking on for myself and others. 

“Oh, Brian’s retired, he’ll help,” is the rallying cry of the neighborhood and I lean right into it.

I’m saving money, making money, and beautifying my environment. I’m helping people, helping the community, and barely hanging on to the handlebars. I want it all and I want it now.

There’s still only 24 hours in a day

“You’ll have all the time in the world when you retire,” they say. But that’s not true. You still have the same number of hours, just lots more ways to fill them.

These are my four-letter problems:

• FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out. I look around and see all the fun everyone is having and I want it too. Traveling to exotic places, creating artistic masterpieces, kayaking and hiking to remote destinations, flying, boating, biking, diving. There’s no end to that list yet I don’t want to miss anything. 
• YOLO: You Only Live Once. There are too many things I want to do and explore while I can. I only have so many years left with good health, mobility, and dexterity. Slowly my abilities will fade and I’ll end up being more sedentary and restricted, and I need to pack as much into NOW as I possibly can. 
• HODL: Hold On for Dear Life. I can’t seem to let go. A good friend tells me about the novels he reads in his quiet time and I know I will, but I can’t sit still right now — I’m too busy clinging to a dream that I can do it all. 

Life is short and I know that I can’t do it all. I also know that I need to slow down a bit because my commitments are starting to control me. I may be off the employment clock, but now I’m on another one. 

I am a retire-aholic

Maybe I need help and maybe not. I can say that being a retire-aholic is much better than all the other types of “-aholics.” 

Perhaps I’ll take a lesson from business and learn to say no. Maybe I’ll embrace the idea of moderation. I might cut back on my commitments.

A wise man told me when I first retired, “don’t make any significant commitments until after your first year of retirement.” 

I didn’t listen to him, I was too busy retiring.