Journey to Kona Day 70: The Meaning of Retirement

I tell people that I've failed retirement two times.  Will the third time be a charm?  My wife and I were at a deli for breakfast this morning and overheard a 75 year old guy comment on how glad he had time to just enjoy things.  I'm only going to be 60 this year, so perhaps the idea of retirement and "enjoying thing" should be a foreign concept.  However, there's a reason that I've retired three times, and that reason is that I was tired of the stress of my work life.  The first time was after owning a business and growing it over ten years.  Looking back at those ten years, which came after running another company for the prior four years, I can count the litany of highly stressful experiences. I encountered everything from internal operational and financial stresses to external regulatory stresses.   There are always personnel related stresses, as well as ongoing business decision making challenges. By the time I retired for the first time, I was ready to take a break.  What did I do, I invested in another stressful business!  Ultimately, I went back to work.

My next "job" was relatively free of stress, until I made it stressful by caring too much.  Therein lies the rub.  I can "blame" a lot of work stress on the job itself, but I can also blame myself for always caring so much about what I do.  Even when I'm not working, I care about the things that are important to me. Do I hear that nasty "E" word cropping up? Expectations?  Most definitely.  I always tell people that I set lofty goals.  Kind of brings it's own stress with it?  So, after my second retirement, which was very short-lived, I took a stressful job with lofty expectations.  I hit the daily double of stress related work challenges.  In the end, I retired for the third time, with the idea of enjoying my life.  Yet, I am constantly looking for things to do, for projects, for opportunities.

When I was younger, I loved to read.  I read for knowledge, and I read for enjoyment.  I can't recall the last time that I truly read for enjoyment. I've been stuck in the revolving door of finding purpose, although I'm not sure what that purpose is.  And so, I ponder the meaning of retirement and try to find some peace and enjoyment in my days.  I'm not sure why I struggle to just do that, rather than always having to seek out new challenges.  Even my ironman goals are their own challenge and own set of lofty expectations.  Why? Why not just chill and enjoy the moment?  We'll see.