Walking to work on Tuesday morning, after returning from France.
I am tired, I have been away the whole weekend, cycled almost 300km and climbed somewhere about the height of Everest on a bike.
It’s clear that work is going to try and kill me this week, with decision making and difficult problems to overcome.
I am thinking about early retirement!
Wouldn’t it be nice today to sit at home with my dog, spin my legs on my bike and unpack my bags?
I could make tea for Alison and the kids and no one would interrupt me with the stresses or the worries about all of the stuff that is going on.
As if it was pre-planned, I bumped into an old colleague of mine on the walk, someone I’ve known since I started out on this journey, who has referred patients over the years and just met me at dental things and even on holiday, by accident!
Last I heard he was living further away from here, but he was walking towards me in the street.
He retired last Monday.
I asked him how it was going and he hesitated.
He hesitated.
He didn’t say immediately that it was brilliant and he didn’t immediately say that he was delighted, he didn’t say he was glad that people weren’t interrupting him with the stresses of this or the decisions of that.
He looked forward to it for so long, but now he understood the full complications of what had happened.
He just joined a gym to try and put some routine into his life, because he was worried, he would become lazy.
re-encountering that conversation with Alison on Tuesday night, reaffirmed why it is not for me.
Even now in the midst of being hammered with a particularly tricky week of practice building and patient management and team building and strategy thinking and recovering from a bike race I understand deep down that early retirement isn’t for me.
Blog Post Number - 2159
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