As I write this, I’ve been off on this extraordinary staycation home holiday thing that I'm doing, and I'm now on day 10.
The first few days were decompression, get the usual cold that you get when you stop for holiday after you've been working too hard, feel miserable, think that you'll never be the same again, everything turns dark, you sit in front of the television, eat shit, don't move, sleep during the day, and then you're better and then, at least on this occasion for me, the curtain comes up and the creativity comes back and the energy returns, and by the time it gets to the Tuesday of the 2nd week, I feel marvellous.
And so, today I went out and met one of my long, long-term friends, mentors and career influencers, actually the person who taught me how to be a surgeon and the person I learned the most from in terms of being a surgeon.
I'd been up with the dogs early for a 2.5 mile walk and then back and on a bike ride in the windy wind for another 2.5 hours before I got back to the house and realised that nobody was there and had to get back on my bike and cycle about 8 miles to go for lunch (I was knackered). It was hard riding in the wind, and I've done a lot of training because I'm on holiday, but never mind, I could sit down for two hours, talk to my pal, eat a nice lunch and then cycle home. This was a brilliant part of the holiday.
One of the things we talked about, though, was retirement.
My friend retired a few years ago from being a head and neck surgeon, working in the most extraordinary job, doing the most extraordinary things. Soon after retirement, he went fishing with a friend, only to have a heart attack during COVID times, not be able to access the care and had to drive himself to the hospital as he felt as if he was dying. Changed his life out of sight.
He's quietly retired now, plays the piano, plays the guitar a little bit, walks a little, but tells me that he's bored, unstimulated, and difficult to motivate himself.
By his own admission, he dwells on things and mopes around, not really stimulated. He was talking about volunteering to get a little bit of purpose back in his life.
As I listened to this, I thought to myself, ‘f*ck, you had all the purpose you could ever need in your life when you worked, why didn't you try to manufacture a situation where you just worked less and actually volunteered in the job that you were in and still got paid for it?’.
He was making an extraordinary contribution as a head and neck cancer surgeon. There was definitely a way for him to continue making a contribution, for which he would almost certainly be paid (even if he didn't want to be).
Worth thinking about for all of us.
It's possible to retire, perhaps get a substantial amount of money if you're lucky enough to sell a business, and then go and volunteer for something. It's also possible just to continue in what you do and consider yourself to be volunteering in it because you already have enough.
Blog Post Number - 4247
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