Why wiork doesn't miss me

It is a family joke that I have been trying to retire since I was 22. Probably that's a bit late, but the general idea is true.

I never really took to work. Sunny days always seemed wasted at work, and "job satisfaction" always seemed like a contradiction in terms to me, like "military intelligence". Sure, there were days when it was OK, but part of me was always gazing wistfully out of windows.

Mine is the CV from hell. Eleven  jobs since leaving university, and I have quit nine of them without a job to go to. Something always turned up. 

So my job was always instrumental. Making the money to allow me to do my living in the time when work wasn't eating away at my life. You could say I was never really committed to work. I would. Let's not get this wrong. I work hard, and try always to do a good job. I do my best, and hate myself when I don't. This is Aspergers, of course: a compulsion rather than a virtue. 

For the last fifteen years of my working life I was self-employed. The key disadvantage here is that you can no longer resign in a fit of pique, or to prove some obscure point. Galling.

But here I am. Retired. "Retired" really isn't the word. "Released" might be better. Maybe "liberated".

So why won't work miss me ?

Easy peasy.

There have always been far too many things to do, too many absorbing things to be interested in, and sadly, work was never one of them. At work, I'd always have movies playing in my head about stuff I would rather have been doing. It was a multi-screen job in there. Complete with ushers bearing trays of ice-creams.

Now, cash-poor but time-rich, I can get on with shaping my day around things that give me a buzz. Today there will be cycling, making things, maybe a walk with Sue to the cafe down the trail, chatting to my sister, playing music, wandering round the garden, maybe calls and mails from the children. There could even be a trip to the big city of Bakewell. It will be a bit of this and a bit of that, and at the end of the day I will feel pleased with the variety and the satisfaction of spending my hours on me, rather than  letting some employer steal them. It may be inconsequential, but it will be mine.

Earning loads of money never made me feel any happier. Money is a bit like sugar. If you have enough, that's all you need. Nobody wants to bank more sugar than is strictly necessary.

I suppose in a way it's handy if you identify with your work. Otherwise a sort of toxic cognitive dissonance sets in. But working certainly gets in the way of living today. Every day.

Think about people you know. How many of them have their health and well-being wrecked on the black wet rocks of employment ? How many people never have time to find out who they are because they are busy earning a pay cheque ? Earning what Dr Seuss wonderfully called 'piffulous pay" ?

Piffulous pay. Think about that.

If some one asked you to sell your life, to hand it over, like Faust but not quite so serious, what would you be satisfied with as an exchange ? Your life for how much ? Does work give you the deal you need ? It never got close for me, and there was always the voice that said that there was something better, that I was worth more.

When I was working, the something better, the huge range of interests and all that excitement, had to take a back seat. There wasn't time to get on with any of the stuff I needed to do. The joke is that I find more satisfaction in making something daft in glass, wood, or stone than ever from solving important problems at work. 

Now ? It's a riot of enjoyable and productive activity. And it's mine.

Selfish ? Sure. Why not ? We each have a life. Just one chance to live it. I am fairly confident that we were not designed to work in the way we do now. We were designed for living. And we are so busy making a living that we have no time left for living itself.

Not any more. I am free at last. Free at last. Let's get on with it. Not a moment to waste.