Looking forward to what you will do after retirement is a bit of a fallacy, because the only thing you can’t do now that you can do then is never have to go back to work.
Mrs. Olsen is right. Having your time to yourself to CHOOSE what you want to do with it is its own goal. And there is no shortage of things to do, so don’t worry about that part.
Jef may not get that, since he’s lucky enough to do a comic strip for a living.
Years ago, I asked a co-worker, then approaching 70, why he hadn’t retired. He said “I don’t know what I’d do with my time.” Yes, he was highly competent and respected, but it saddened me to think that his job was the only thing he felt capable of doing. I retired back in 2000 and haven’t had a dull moment since. And I’m doing what I want to do, not what somebody else* tells me I have to do.
most jobs/careers morph into something else over the years. The job I had in the sixties was nothing like the job I finished with. the enthusiasm I had in my youth was battered by the bureaucracy, micromanaging and disrespect management had for the workers.
I didn’t forget it, Frazz. I just have never admitted it, AND I don’t feel a need to. Calling someone ‘old’ in a certain disdainful tone is meant to give the caller a sense of superiority, as if being younger makes one somehow superior. Thing is, for many reasons, hordes of ‘callers’ never get to experience just how great that stage of life can be.
Jef Mallett Blog Posts Frazz · 17 hrs · The first time I realized I was old was when I was reading in Rolling Stone that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon had been out for 10 years, meaning it had been, in fact, 10 years since I first heard, _“… and then one day you find ten years have got behind you …”+and simply could not fathom being 10 years older than that, than anything, let alone having missed the starting gun, as the lyrics also say. But being blindsided feels like you sure missed something, and I felt old. So old. I was 21.And furious with myself. I would never allow myself to feel that way again. Though I would come close.Even though it came out the same year as Dark Side of the Moon, it would still be a couple years before I heard Jimmy Buffett’s “He Went to Paris,” where he sings about four or five years slipping away just before he sings about 20 more years slipping away. I was in Key West when I heard it, a place that seemed created to steal away just such massive chunks of time. It’s not like I was there to waste away in Margaritaville; the opposite, in fact. I was on a vacation with a good friend, running and swimming and fishing and diving up a storm, but I heard the song in a really kind of sad off-season titty bar (the kind of titty bar that would play “He Went to Paris”) and the whole gestalt rattled the shit out of me, like that’s exactly where decades go to vanish and there I was. I couldn’t wait to get home and get busy with, I don’t know, doing stuff. Any stuff. And I did. I raced bikes some more, I met Patty and married her, I segued to triathlon and eventually serious, borderline narcissistic triathlon and somehow stayed married, I tried this comic strip thing and am still doing that, wrote a book, I met great people, I traveled great places, I got kind of fit, I did some events I never thought I’d be able to do or in some cases even want to, and 20 years still slipped away.
Bilan about 4 years ago
It should be the number days until Caulfield leaves her class. But with this being a comic, that’s not going to happen.
Concretionist about 4 years ago
The really great thing about aging is that eventually you get to where you can throw your own surprise party.
mddshubby2005 about 4 years ago
If you’re that burned out, Mrs. Olsen, just quit. ‘Being done’ isn’t a goal – it’s escapism.
djlactin about 4 years ago
Let’s not tell Mrs O that this strip loops forever through the same year… (hee hee)
Brian G Premium Member about 4 years ago
Looking forward to what you will do after retirement is a bit of a fallacy, because the only thing you can’t do now that you can do then is never have to go back to work.
whahoppened about 4 years ago
Caulfield, you just go on believing that!
jpayne4040 about 4 years ago
LOL! I hope Frazz is wrong for once, but I’m thinking he’s right.
e.groves about 4 years ago
Being retired and not having to go to work in foul weather is a blessing.
cissycox about 4 years ago
Ignatz Premium Member about 4 years ago
Mrs. Olsen is right. Having your time to yourself to CHOOSE what you want to do with it is its own goal. And there is no shortage of things to do, so don’t worry about that part.
Jef may not get that, since he’s lucky enough to do a comic strip for a living.
redstart about 4 years ago
I had a whole bunch of things I planned to do when I retired, and I haven’t found the time to do them yet . . . 20 years and counting .
Richard S Russell Premium Member about 4 years ago
Years ago, I asked a co-worker, then approaching 70, why he hadn’t retired. He said “I don’t know what I’d do with my time.” Yes, he was highly competent and respected, but it saddened me to think that his job was the only thing he felt capable of doing. I retired back in 2000 and haven’t had a dull moment since. And I’m doing what I want to do, not what somebody else* tells me I have to do.
*well, except for my wife, of course
micromos about 4 years ago
The answer is . . What ever I want!
flying spaghetti monster about 4 years ago
most jobs/careers morph into something else over the years. The job I had in the sixties was nothing like the job I finished with. the enthusiasm I had in my youth was battered by the bureaucracy, micromanaging and disrespect management had for the workers.
sandpiper about 4 years ago
I didn’t forget it, Frazz. I just have never admitted it, AND I don’t feel a need to. Calling someone ‘old’ in a certain disdainful tone is meant to give the caller a sense of superiority, as if being younger makes one somehow superior. Thing is, for many reasons, hordes of ‘callers’ never get to experience just how great that stage of life can be.
Happy, happy, happy!!! Premium Member about 4 years ago
I’m there. I’m tired. I wanna stop.
GaryCarr about 4 years ago
There’s nothing wrong with just being done, I don’t need a goal to live.
Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo] about 4 years ago
Jef Mallett Blog Posts Frazz · 17 hrs · The first time I realized I was old was when I was reading in Rolling Stone that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon had been out for 10 years, meaning it had been, in fact, 10 years since I first heard, _“… and then one day you find ten years have got behind you …”+and simply could not fathom being 10 years older than that, than anything, let alone having missed the starting gun, as the lyrics also say. But being blindsided feels like you sure missed something, and I felt old. So old. I was 21.And furious with myself. I would never allow myself to feel that way again. Though I would come close.Even though it came out the same year as Dark Side of the Moon, it would still be a couple years before I heard Jimmy Buffett’s “He Went to Paris,” where he sings about four or five years slipping away just before he sings about 20 more years slipping away. I was in Key West when I heard it, a place that seemed created to steal away just such massive chunks of time. It’s not like I was there to waste away in Margaritaville; the opposite, in fact. I was on a vacation with a good friend, running and swimming and fishing and diving up a storm, but I heard the song in a really kind of sad off-season titty bar (the kind of titty bar that would play “He Went to Paris”) and the whole gestalt rattled the shit out of me, like that’s exactly where decades go to vanish and there I was. I couldn’t wait to get home and get busy with, I don’t know, doing stuff. Any stuff. And I did. I raced bikes some more, I met Patty and married her, I segued to triathlon and eventually serious, borderline narcissistic triathlon and somehow stayed married, I tried this comic strip thing and am still doing that, wrote a book, I met great people, I traveled great places, I got kind of fit, I did some events I never thought I’d be able to do or in some cases even want to, and 20 years still slipped away.