“You can’t leave, you make too much money to walk away. You don’t even have to work that hard,” Bill said.

I was telling Bill I planned to take the package. He did not understand why I would even consider it. He was telling me why I shouldn’t take it.

“How much money do you really need, Bill? If you think we can’t walk away from these paychecks then you can never leave. You’ll be here until they kick you out. There will always be more money to make,” I said.

“I have no intention of leaving,” he said. “I turned my package in already. I checked No. I plan to stay as long as I can. I love what I do.”

That’s what a lot of the gray hairs said when they told you they were staying. “I love what I do” even though they had been doing the same damn thing for years and had complained about how boring their job was the week before.

“I have other things I’d like to do. I want time, not more money,” I said, though there was a nagging feeling that I hadn’t reached my number yet and that might be a problem.

“Time? You have three-day weekends twice a month, ten holidays and four weeks of vacation. What more do you want? You have plenty of time.”

“No I don’t. By the end of the weekend I still have a long list of things I want to do.”

“By the end of my three-day weekends I am so damn bored I am ready to come back to work,” he said.

***

I didn’t have Bill’s problem. I didn’t love my work enough to exclude other interests I had. I also didn’t get bored on weekends. I had an easy time filling my weekends. I didn’t look forward to going to back going back to work on Monday mornings. On Sunday night when I thought about the Monday morning staff meeting my back started tensing up.

Bill wasn’t the only person who told me they were bored by the end of the weekend. Several of my friends said the same thing. Others said that if they were off full-time they would probably eat or drink themselves to death; I don’t think they were kidding. A few of my male and female friends told me they might end up divorced if they spent that much time with their spouse. Those friends had a problem with time; they didn’t want more of it, at least not at home.

My problem was time. I didn’t have enough. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to do the things I wanted to do for my daughters, the house and yard, the finances and to explore the interests I had. I was saving and investing as much as possible to reach my number to buy more time.

As the last day of work neared several people that had chosen to stay asked me how I was going to fill “all that time.” I gave them my list of things I planned to do, the same one I wrote about in the first post. When I left work, I didn’t think I would have a problem filling time. Even though a lot of my peers seemed very concerned about it I never considered there was such a problem as having too much time.

I was sure I could fill the time, not just fill it, but fill it with activities that had purpose and meaning. I was also confident if I couldn’t fill time I was curious enough, had interest in so many things, that I would develop new interests and activities.

***

I had a long list of things I planned to do as soon as I no longer had to spend my days sitting in a cube staring at a computer screen, or spending hours meeting in windowless conference rooms attending weekly staff meetings, monthly safety meetings, quarterly business reviews and leadership meetings. I had been developing the list long before retirement packages were rumored.

I planned to be healthier. Sitting on my butt all day had added more than a few pounds to my frame and the weight and the stress of the corporate environment had raised my blood pressure. I had a goal to reduce my blood pressure to normal levels without medication. I planned to exercise longer and more frequently, eat healthier and drink more water. A friend suggested I take yoga to stretch and develop balance. I read a great article in Men’s Journal about the benefits ten minutes of meditation per day provided and I was going to try it, even though it felt a little new aged.

I wanted to reboot some activities I used to have a lot of passion for, but years of numerous demands had taken their toll on how much time I had for them. Reading fiction and non-fiction, hiking, going to the beach, visiting Paso Robles wineries, visiting my long-time friends in Seal Beach and San Diego, listening to progressive rock groups like Genesis, Yes and Supertramp and Neo-prog like Porcupine Tree, Marillion and Steven Wilson.. I planned for routine breakfasts, lunches and happy hours with retired friends and other former co-workers. I would also spend time with my three daughters, especially since they would be leaving home in the near future.

There were a couple of new activities I had wanted to do but never found time. I was finally going to learn to play a musical instrument, ether the piano or electric guitar. Most importantly, I was going to answer a long-time call to write. I had a trilogy of novels in various stages of completion. After numerous starts and stops I was determined to finish at least one. I was also going to write a blog. Of course, I planned to do some of the retirement standards: travel, play a little golf and spend time with the grandchildren (whenever they came along). 

I thought there was little chance I would not be able to fill time with meaningful activities. If anything, I had too many things I wanted to do. The chance of becoming bored and going back to work, as many of my peers suggested, seemed minimal.

***

I didn’t get a scholarship or play golf in college, but I spent five years in school. I went to classes Monday through Friday, studied at night and on weekends and spent summers working and going to summer school. After graduating, my week days were largely dictated by the company I worked for. Except for vacations, holidays and weekends, my time from the age of twenty-two until almost sixty was spent in an office behind a desk looking at a screen or in a conference rooms from 7:30 to 5:30.

I didn’t enjoy the bureaucracy and structure of Corporate America, so I made a couple of attempts to escape the oil industry. I started an MBA program at thirty while I worked full-time. I spent two years taking the undergrad prerequisites and another two years taking the MBA classes. My nights and weekends were largely spent going to class and studying. The next two years I spent my nights and weekends learning how to program an interactive software tool called Toolbook to create a stock investment program I outlined and brainstormed in my masters thesis. When neither Charles Schwab nor Standard & Poors decided not to use the software, I spent my free time creating an interactive story integrating text, music, audio, and video. The story got some attention; one multimedia publisher expressed interest and said the story could make me a New Age Guru, but his company went bankrupt.

I got married while in the MBA (can’t believe I had the time!). We had three daughters and divorced when they were young. I became a single Dad. Becoming a father brought a whole new set of responsibilities, more than I thought possible. Diapers, meals, making lunches, taking them to school. School awards programs, talent shows, band concerts, plays and dance recitals. Volleyball, basketball, softball. gymnastic events, cross country and track. I loved being a father.

***

For many years, my time was dictated by school, work and family. I got up and went to school, worked or studied, came home, got up and did it again. When I had children I would help get my daughters ready for school, go to work, come home, make dinner or go to some event, get them ready for bed, then get up and do it again.

This is not a complaint. This is how many of our lives are structured. Time is filled with school, career, family, the house and yes, some recreation and entertainment (it wasn’t all work and no play!). I might have made some different choices about the work I did but I wouldn’t make any changes about my life with my children, even though as my girls were growing and my career became more demanding some of my passions and interests were pushed by the wayside. I no longer had time to do things I loved and they were no longer part of my routine. Those activities and interests were relegated to my list of things I would do again, someday.

***

Why am I telling you all this? I dismissed the friends who asked how I was going to spend 24/7. I was certain that was not going to be a problem for me. I had been so busy since I graduated from college. I knew there wasn’t much freedom for how I would spend my days. The choices had been made, some by me, others for me. When I woke up I didn’t have to get up and figure out how I was going spend my day. I was so busy I did not realize how much time 24/7 was if it wasn’t occupied by school, work or family. I only knew I didn’t have enough time.

I started doing things on my list. I walked four miles in the farmland northwest of my house, meditated for thirty minutes and developed a yoga practice for flexibility and balance. I went to breakfast on Monday mornings (our retiree version of the Monday morning staff meeting) and to lunch one or two days a week. I used Duolingo to learn Spanish and started taking piano lessons. I filled my days sometimes, but I found it difficult to fill the time from when I woke up to when I went to bed with recreation and entertainment. There were days I would finish my routine, look at my watch and it would be 2 o’clock and I’d think, “wow I have done a lot already and I still have hours before I’ll be going to sleep. What’s next?”Those days were a little uncomfortable, but not enough to drive me back to the oil industry.

There was a second problem that made it difficult for me to fill time. It took me a long time to realize it, but I can see it in hindsight. If you have ever had to break a long-term habit, starting retirement was almost like going cold turkey; one moment you have a long-established pattern of behavior (get up early, go to work, come home, make dinner and help the kids with homework, go to bed) and the next moment you don’t.

I don’t want to make you think I am comparing retirement to breaking a bad habit, though in some habits I developed over forty years served well in the second act but did not serve me well in retirement. I’ll explain this more in the next post.

Figuring out how to use the freedom you finally have when you retire is a whole lot better than breaking a bad habit. Breaking a long pattern of behavior is hard to do. I didn’t understand that. Not only did I need my list of things to do in the retirement I wanted, I also needed to know what I had to undo.

I first encountered The Hero’s Journey in the early 1990s while taking a multimedia storytelling class at UCLA. People thought stories published on CD ROMs that integrated text, sound, video and audio would be a boom in storytelling. I did too. It didn’t, but I learned about Joseph Campbell through Christopher Vogler’s work in the class. The Hero’s Journey goes like this:

A Hero exists in her ORDINARY WORLD. She receives A CALL TO ADVENTURE, but the Hero is reluctant to change and REFUSES THE CALL. The call is tenacious; it does not go away. The Hero is encouraged by a MENTOR to answer the call. Finally, the Hero is either persuaded to stop refusing or she is forced to answer by circumstances beyond her control. The Hero departs her ordinary world, CROSSES THE FIRST THRESHOLD and enters a special place. Here she encounters TESTS, meets new ALLIES and makes ENEMIES. She APPROACHES THE INMOST CAVE, crosses another threshold and endures the SUPREME ORDEAL. She takes possession of her REWARD and is pursued on THE ROAD BACK to the Ordinary World. Reluctantly, the Hero must eventually go back to her ordinary world. She crosses a third threshold, experiences a RESURRECTION, and is transformed by the experience. She RETURNS WITH HER REWARD, a tangible thing or knowledge from the experience that benefits the Ordinary World. The reward changes her ordinary world, and in so doing, she changes the society she lives in.

This adventure is what this blog is about. My ordinary world was disrupted when oil prices collapsed in 2014. I was a single Dad with three children; one married, one in college and one a high school senior. I was in my thirty-sixth year of my career and I was not close enough to My Number. When oil prices collapse and the downturn persists, layoffs are on the horizon. Rumors were rampant that packages were coming, starting with enhanced voluntary packages. The rumors were true, the packages were inevitable, but the timing and the size of the packages were uncertain. I was retirement eligible and would likely receive an offer. There was no way the package was going to get me to my number, but voluntary packages can become involuntary, and my position supporting the line organization was likely to be eliminated.

My Call to Adventure was that I may be retiring sooner than I planned, whether I was at my number or not, whether I volunteered or not. I had been waiting to retire since the beginning of my career, but when the end seemed inevitable, I wasn’t sure I was ready to go. I refused the call at first. I had two college educations to pay for! A friend who worked for a different oil company reluctantly took a package a year earlier. Soon he was happy he took it and our conversations (my Mentor) convinced me to take it, figure things out afterwards and be happy I got an extra two to three years in the next act.

In late September 2016 I walked into my supervisor’s office and handed him my paperwork. Two months later I walked out of the building, leaving behind my 8 to 5, a big part of my ordinary world. I Crossed the First Threshold and entered a special world, one I had wanted a long time. It turns out I didn’t understand what this next act was like.

In these first two posts I have told you how I left Corporate America after thirty-eight years and that I have been in the next act for almost seven years. This blog is about my experiences since I crossed over into this special world.

***

It’s a wonderful stage of life (as long as you are financially secure and have your health, but it is so different from Act II. Most of us are finished working or go to work in a different line. You have raised your children. Making money and raising your children are no longer your primary goals. Your kids may have left home, or they are still home, but your responsibilities are less than they used to be. Family is still very important, but in this stage of life you have the most freedom you have ever had. You may still want to make money, but it may not be a primary driver for what you do. Buying new stuff probably won’t be either, but you may find that after years of sacrifice and saving to reach this stage you can afford a few of those things you didn’t buy.

For many of us, once we get out of the office or the grind of 8 to 5, our health is going to get better, lose some weight, reduce stress and anxiety, gain some muscle strength (unless you sit on your butt). From my experience, and many others. your wellness should improve.

One of the biggest changes is that you aren’t living for the future (other than to make sure you have one), you are living in the present.

***

This blog is about my experience, yours may be different, but there will be common aspects of most people’s lives in this next act. Two hundred people took early retirement packages when I did. There were many retirement-eligible people who didn’t take the package, and they have gradually retired over the last seven years. The last of my vintage will be leaving later this month when the next round of packages occurs. Most of my college and high school friends are also retired. I’ve talked to a lot of them about their experiences in retirement. I run into them at Home Depot or the grocery store, see them at the latest retirement party or talk to them on “Happy Hour” calls. Their responses range from “I hate it” to “Can’t believe I waited so long!” The transition is difficult for some. It has been simple for others, like my pilot friend who has been practicing for retirement for thirty years. Many have said it is harder to use the freedom they have than they thought it would be.

I am in the camp that wishes I hadn’t waited so long. It is a great time of life, but that doesn’t mean it has been as easy as I thought it would be. At times it has been more difficult filling 24/7 with meaningful things than I thought it would be. I will write about this a lot.

***

The next act has been a huge transition for me. It hasn’t been difficult, but it hasn’t been as simple as I thought. It is a journey to a new Ordinary World, and according to Vogler and Campbell once you cross into the next act there are several stages to be encountered before you create a new ordinary world.

• Encounter TESTS, met new ALLIES and make ENEMIES;

• APPROACH THE INMOST CAVE;

• Cross a second threshold and endure the SUPREME ORDEAL;

• Takes possession of a REWARD;

• Be pursued on THE ROAD BACK to the Ordinary World;

• Cross a third threshold, experience a RESURRECTION, and be transformed by the experience; and

• RETURN WITH A REWARD, a tangible thing or knowledge from the experience that benefits the Ordinary World. The reward changes the ordinary world, and in so doing, the hero changes society. (A note, the ordinary world you create may not be the one you thought you wanted when you left the workforce. You may stumble into something entirely different.).

I’ll write about my experience making this transition.

***

I will write about how I spend time. My “routine” includes reading, listening to music, meditating, practicing yoga, spending time with my girls and grandson, hiking, drinking wine, writing and digital painting. I will write about products or services that enable these activities. I am not trying to be an influencer for the post Corporate America crowd. I’ll share things like books, music, movies, streaming programs, software and hardware (since I am an Apple guy I will be talking about that platform, but I am sure Windows and Android have equivalents). I will not write about things I have no experience with.

I also spend time traveling. I will write about the hotels, locations and experiences from my travels and post pictures from my destinations in case you’re interested or you need inspiration to get out there.

***

I hope this gives you an idea of what my blog is about. I am sure it will evolve over time, but starting out this is what I plan to post about.

Let me start this blog by telling you a little bit about who I am and what I think this blog is about.

I am a father to three great daughters and a grandfather to my grandson. My first daughter lives on the coast, but my two youngest daughters and my grandson live with me in Central California. I am not an Empty Nester, yet. I may soon be. My youngest has finished her masters degree and is moving out of state to work on a PHD. My middle daughter is finishing her education to be an Ultrasound Technician and will start her career this fall. At some point in the future she and my grandson will move out to start her adult life. I am in no hurry to be an Empty Nester.

I like to read Stephen King and John Grisham and classics like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Music has been important to me since I discovered rock in the late sixties and progressive rock in the early seventies. I listen to Zeppelin, Genesis, Yes, Steven Wilson and The Doobie Brothers and The Cure. I like drinking wine, especially big, bold reds from Justin and Daou in the Paso Robles area. I have a weakness for the design and feel of German sports cars. I discovered hiking when I moved to California and I routinely hike the southern Sierras, the national parks and deserts like Anza Borrego.

I started traveling as soon as I graduated from college and had a paycheck. I went to several places in Mexico, Hawaii and numerous ski resorts around the west. When my girls were old enough to travel we went to Disneyland, San Diego and Vegas (yes it is kid friendly). I made my first trip to Europe in 2003, to Italy, and later had the opportunity to go to England and Ireland for a training program. I took my oldest daughter to England on one of the trips, then to Ireland; she has the travel bug and has taken solo trips to Italy and Thailand. When my girls were older we went to Hawaii, Alaska and Park City. We have hiked, skied, snorkeled, zip-lined, tubed and had many other experiences on our trips. Travel is an important part of my family’s lifestyle, and I always have a good camera with me.

***

I grew up in Texas. I planned to live and retire there, but the oil industry had other plans for me. I moved to California for a three-year assignment in the 1980s. I have been here for almost forty years. Work and a paycheck brought me here. The Sierras, Pacific Ocean, deserts and the weather keep me here (though it is 109 degrees outside as I write this!). I am thankful the oil industry moved me to California and provided a good income to raise my girls.

My parents taught me the way to success was to get a degree in one of the “Big Three”professions from a good university, get a high-paying position with a big, stable company that offered great benefits and a retirement program; put in forty years; retire with a gold watch and pension; and then live the life I wanted to live. They were especially adamant about this plan when they didn’t have as much money as they needed to live the lifestyle they wanted.

That’s what I did. I did what my parents taught me, though I kicked and screamed as I entered college and continued to kick and scream throughout my long career.

I graduated with an engineering degree from a large southern university. I’m not sure how nineteen year old me decided to major in engineering. I didn’t like math or science, but that is a story for a novel I am working on. I went to work in the oil industry, the highest paying industry when I graduated. I didn’t quite make it forty years and I did not work for one company. But the companies I worked for paid well (to those who survived the numerous layoffs) and they provided good health care benefits and retirement programs.

***

I entered the workforce planning for the day I would retire, especially a few years into my career when I discovered the path I had taken wasn’t a good match for me. I contributed as much as the IRS or the company allowed to retirement plans and 401(k)s. I saved outside the tax-deferred accounts. I learned about the stock market and invested in aggressive companies for the long-term. I wanted to reach “My Number,” the amount of money I needed to save to get out of 8 to 5 as soon as possible to live the life I wanted. I spent much of my career looking towards the future, probably at the expense of not spending enough time in the present. I can’t tell you how much I looked forward to leaving Corporate America.

***

To be honest, even though I talked about retiring often, I don’t know if I would have ever reached “My Number.” Most experts recommend saving enough money to provide the same income you had while working to maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle. That was a big number. The longer I worked, the more my career progressed, the more money I earned, the more I needed to save to replace my paycheck. How ironic. The more money I made, the more raises and promotions I received, the more I needed to save and invest. Number creep. “My Number” kept getting bigger and further away over the years. There was another problem too. I was more addicted to the two paychecks I received monthly than I had ever been to any of things my friends and I swallowed when we were young. I wasn’t sure I could go cold turkey.

As my peers and I neared retirement we asked, “how long until you retire?” and the answer always seemed to be “two to three years.” One friend told me he was retiring in two to three years for almost a decade. That could have easily been my fate.

***

Fortunately, I worked in a commodity industry, and commodities go through boom and bust cycles. When oil prices rise, the industry could be a fun place to work. Companies spent a lot of money, hired a lot of new employees, and increased salaries and bonuses. However, when price fell, the bust periods were brutal. Price declines were usually faster and more dramatic than price increases, and the busts seemed to last much longer than the booms.

When the bottom fell out of the market the big oil company’s patterns of behavior were well known:

• cut activities, which caused the service companies to fire employees;

• cut discretionary costs further;

• offer enticing severance packages to retirement-eligible employees to get them to leave voluntarily;

• then layoff employees, with severance packages, to reach overhead reduction goals; and

• wait out the storm until oil prices rise, and if the bust lasts longer than expected, repeat the previous steps.

I went through three boom and bust cycles the first thirty years of my career. I did not meet the criteria for enhanced voluntary retirement when packages were offered, but I was offered voluntary packages. I accepted the first two, intending to leave the industry, only to be lured back by a paycheck. I rejected the third package without consequence. A fourth package was on the horizon.

The market collapsed again in 2014 and this time I was close to retirement. I had twenty years of service and I was more than fifty-five years old; I met the criteria to be retirement eligible and receive a voluntary package if the company offered one. I wasn’t at “My Number” and the package wasn’t going to get me to it, so I debated whether I would accept one. I estimated I had two to three years left until I could retire.

The company took two years to cut activities, reduce discretionary spending, evaluate the strategic direction forward (e.g. how many people they needed to run the business) and offer voluntary packages. The package was good, but not good enough to reach my number. I wanted to start living the life I wanted to live now, but I had a sophomore in college and my youngest was a high school senior heading to an expensive University of California school. I had two college educations to pay for. I didn’t enjoy the work, and the environment in the building would be depressing after layoffs and continuous cost cutting for the foreseeable future was not fun work.

Then better sense prevailed. I realized I did not want to finish my career in a down cycle, spending long days looking for ways to cut costs. I didn’t want to work in a place that many of my friends had left, by choice or forced to leave; the morale was always so low after layoffs. I knew if I turned the package down management could tell me I was retiring anyway with a smaller package.

My company paid me to retire. After a thirty-eight year career I left Corporate America almost seven years ago. I received an Apple Watch as a parting gift. If they had not paid me to leave I would’ve continued to work “a little while longer” to reach a number that kept getting bigger, like many of my work friends did.

Time to live life the way I really wanted to.

***

I didn’t plan to have a conventional retirement. I wasn’t going to ride off into the sunset to play golf five days a week or create a new job as a volunteer. I didn’t have grandchildren (at the time) so I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time with grandkids like many of my friends did. I still had two girls at home and I planned to spend time with them while they were still home. I planned to exercise a lot, to read at least fifty books a year, to listen to music regularly and to learn to speak Spanish. Travel was one of my top priorities. I had big plans for all the extra time I would have without my 8 to 5. I wanted to combine my love for photography with traveling. I planned to hike the local mountains, sit on beaches, go wine tasting in Paso Robles and set foot on at least five continents.

Retirement was more to me than leisure and recreation, though I planned for a lot of that too. I didn’t call it retirement. It was the next act, which included the next career. Retirement wasn’t about quitting work, it was about doing the work I wanted to do without having to earn money. For me that work was writing novels. I started and stopped writing several novels during my career, but I let other priorities and responsibilities stop me from completing them. I was going to complete at least one or more of my novels in the next act.

***

I love this stage of life. I wish I had been able to do it when I was thirty or forty rather than waiting until I was 59-11/12. At least I get to experience it. I have a lot of time and freedom to do what I want to do. I like not having to work for a paycheck. I spend more time in the present than looking to the future. I get to spend time with my girls and grandson. I traveling more than I did when I worked, but it is still never enough. I read and listen to music during the day rather sit in a conference room for an endless stream of meetings.

The next act has been great, but I don’t want to give you the impression that is has been a simple transition. There was no On/Off switch. The change from forty years of structured behavior to an almost completely unstructured life was huge. It took work to make that transition, at least for me, and six years later my next act is still a work in progress. Friends that didn’t take the package asked me what I was going to do when I retired. I told them my list of things I was going to do. I didn’t realize that I also needed to have a list of things I needed to undo.

***

I’ll end this post here. The AI* says I have exceeded the optimum number of words for this kind of post. I will follow this up soon with a second post to describe what I think this blog is about.

* Just kidding about the AI. I did ask Chat GPT about the length of blog posts, but I didn’t use it to write this post and don’t plan to use it to write them, though I am curious about the technology and will be exploring how to use it. For now, this blog was completely written by a human being.