We are still 6+ months from our planned early retirement date and I have to report that time is moving a bit slowly. I thought when I was within one year of my secret plan to escape Megacorp for a life of FIRE (financial independence & retiring early), that things would start to feel accelerated, but that hasn’t really been the case.
One of the factors that I thought would make this final year move fast was the idea that I would be doing certain things for the ‘last time’ as I moved through each of the last 12 months.
I guess in retrospect, you only wax nostalgic about things you will truly miss. But in reality, corporate budgets, management presentations, and HR planning are not activities I really enjoy that much. In fact, when I take a step back, I’m surprised at how relatively inconsequential most of the time I spend in meetings is – especially in the context of what an independent life of FIRE offers outside of work.
Many days at the office I am reminded of the saying “Bored in retirement? Sometimes, but not as bored as I was at the office.” Or, “When I’ve been bored in the past, I never thought ‘I should go to work'”. All in all, I guess it’s a sign that I will probably be better acclimated post-work than I might have thought.
What I will surely miss is having time in meetings and chatting with others about the day’s news or events. We have a couple of team meetings each week where we regularly wrap up the work discussion early and talk about sports, politics, kids and other news. It’s fun to have a little extra time to chat, and I notice most people enjoy the time to think beyond the walls of Megacorp. We’ve also been going out to lunch with increasing frequency. Getting out of the office and trying out some local greasy spoons. Good fun.
Now that fall is here, I am still expecting some acceleration in the passing of time. With my son starting his senior year of high school, our life is busy with activities and events almost every night and weekend. The 90-day stretch from 9/25 (my son’s birthday) this Friday, through Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas on 12/25 always seems to move quickly. This is a time of year it seems like there is never enough time to do the things we truly relish and lead me to say we should never wish our time away to get to the next thing.
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” Henry David Thoreau
Image Credit: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
I totally agree. Now that I’m away, I’m amazed at what a waste of my life many of those meetings were. The good thing though is that you can always keep up the people you enjoy if you really want to. After all, your schedule will be much more flexible. 🙂 Although I’m busier that I expected, I actually think my relationships with my still working friends are much stronger now.
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That’s good to hear you keep up with your work friends. An old boss of mine who retired used to always be in the Megacorp coffee shop catching up with people. That would be nice.
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This is discouraging to hear! We’re still 7 years out and it starts moving MORE slowly? oh dear! But yes, with the senior year and the holidays up and coming, I’m betting it will start to move quickly. This season always goes too fast in my opinion. Maybe because, as you say, there’s never enough time for what we really want to do.
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I wouldn’t say MORE slowly, but certainly not FASTER either. I guess when you are stuck in a meeting discussing the implementation plan of some multiyear initiative (of which you will be no part of), it’s hard not to watch the clock.
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That makes sense. That’s when you start thinking about where you’ll be instead during each phase of that multiyear initiative! 🙂
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We’re still a couple years out, but we have definitely never accelerated a feeling of things speeding up! So it’s good to know that it probably won’t speed up in our last year either. 🙂 It’s funny — we thought we would start to be able to handle work stress better, too, since at this point we could quit our jobs and be fine for quite some time, even if we couldn’t yet quit for good. But we find ourselves MORE irritated by work and also more stressed out about it… it’s weird. But we’re trying to balance all of that by appreciating it more, too. Who knows — one day, maybe we’ll have some nostalgia for it, and we want to know we didn’t spend all our time scorning our careers, but also appreciated them when they were happening. Hope the time in fact does speed up — for all of us! — this fall!
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While time is not flying, I would say my work stress/irritation has dropped dramatically. I find myself just as committed as always, but not quite as “worked up” over the Megacorp BS. That’s been nice.
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Good to know — hope we have that to look forward to as we get closer!
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