Over the weekend I decided to book my retirement day.
It’s good to have a plan.
While I understand that no true battle plan stands contact with the enemy and it's likely that I will die way before my retirement day, I’m going to write it down here for the first time for everyone to see.
It’s the 6th of January 2057.
On that day I will shuffle into work on my 85th birthday and probably have a little party that might involve a cup of coffee and dairy milk that I can suck as I’ve taken out my dentures.
I’ll make it to work just long enough between catheter bag empties and I’ll have my hearing aids in so that I can hear and my big thick glasses which will be like two ends of milk bottles stuck in a bent coat hanger.
I’d like to keep turning up until I’m 85 if I’m healthy enough to be able to do that.
I’ll retire that day and will probably not live much longer than 5 years following that if my plan comes to fruition.
The truth is, I might be gone well before then.
I’ll set that as my goal and therefore I can frame my discussions about the fact that I’m not even half way through my working life yet and I still have 3 1/2 decades of climate change and economic disaster and migration and poverty and technological advance and all the number of things to navigate as I try to make it to my own metaphysical finish line.
So, I can slow down now, I’m not in a rush.
If I’m going to work that long then I don’t need a pension and if I’m not selling my business then I don’t need to ‘gear it up’ to get the maximum amount of money in the next 3 years.
That at least is a weight off my mind, although the rest of the weights will stay on my mind.
I won’t need to waste my time in discussions with corporates about the possibility of selling my business and I won’t need to get upset if a patient decides not to go ahead with treatment today and to postpone it for a year or two because I’ll still be here then (or one of our guys will) to be able to help when it comes up.
The long game is long indeed, longer than 2057.
Blog Post Number - 2874
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