The Retirment Blues

Retirement is such a big deal these days. When I graduated from college I got so much advice from the “older and wiser” about how I should throw as much money as I could into my 401k to save for the time when I would rather read the newspaper and attend town council meetings than go to work. What the hell do people do when they retire? I feel like I have enough time to recreate as I please now and I have a full-time job. There will still be 24 hours in the day when I’m 65 right? At least I hope so; I guess anything is possible.

I went to Philadelphia this past weekend to attend a retirement event for my father. He’s ending his 40 year career in the golf professional business. I really wonder what he’s going to do. He’s not a guy who can do nothing. Nothing is exactly that. Nothing.

I feel like retirement is probably a little anti-climactic. There are always those days that I wish I was on my own schedule and I didn’t have to get up and go to work like a robot, but I don’t know if it would really be that great. I’ve been unemployed before, and I had some money to live off, but I was constantly concerned that my money would run out. Is retirement a life of endless thought about whether my money would run out before my life did - infinite unemployment? I suppose you could get some part-time job just to get out of the house and get a little paycheck, but that must be tough to swallow especially if you were in a position of high responsibility before.

I just think there is way too much emphasis put on retirement. It just doesn’t seem cool to me. Nevertheless, that 401k deduction shows up on my pay stub every week. So I ain’t exactly buckin’ the system. Yet.