{"id":308,"date":"2021-09-30T19:06:07","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T02:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/?p=308"},"modified":"2024-08-29T11:24:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:24:27","slug":"now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/?p=308","title":{"rendered":"Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I&#8217;ve been trying to figure out what to do with my life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might be thinking: What? Tom, you&#8217;re turning 60. Your life is pretty established.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BUT, my challenges are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m fit and healthy, and am confident I\u2019m going to live a long life. (My parents are 30+ years older than me and still alive.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m working in tech (earning good money) &#8212; but I\u2019m kind of sick of it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My real passion is around things more creative. If I were confident (at 20) that I could have had a well-paying career doing something artistic (for example), I would probably have gone in that direction.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m a smart guy (very math-y) and am well suited for working in tech.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So here I am approaching traditional retirement age, and thinking: Is it time to walk away from what I\u2019m doing, and start a \u2018second career\u2019? I\u2019ve been working for about 35 years. I could live another 35 years (or more) and have a completely different second career &#8212; starting now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just thinking about the possibility of walking away from my day-to-day grind is refreshing. My current role is very much reactive &#8212; I essentially do what needs doing based on current circumstances. I feel in some ways a \u2018pawn\u2019, with my actions determined by a set of chaotic individuals &#8212; who do unpredictable things, which I often need to set right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The challenge is that &#8212; as I said above &#8212; I\u2019m earning good money. HOWEVER, at the end of this calendar year (now only 3 months away) my stock income drops off by quite a bit &#8212; since I\u2019ll have been with my current company for four years, and will have pocketed the last of my incoming stock grant. So then&#8230; what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do I look for a new tech job (with similar income) which will at least provide different challenges? Or do I pursue something completely different (ignoring the money inflow) that makes me (more) happy? One external opinion is: our financial adviser has told us, given our net worth and post-retirement plans, I could retire now &#8212; and we would have enough money to fully enjoy ourselves (travel, etc). Further, it would be tragic if I delayed retirement, but then one of us got sick (or worse) and we couldn\u2019t enjoy our later life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don\u2019t know what the answer is, but I\u2019m leaning toward:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Walking away from my current \u00a0job at the end of the year<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Assessing other opportunities in tech (to see if there might be one that pays well, but is less bothersome and\/or consumes fewer hours)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or stepping away entirely, enjoying ourselves, and returning to the workplace &#8212; only as\/if needed\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I fortunately look\/act younger than I am. So if I needed to re-enter the work world (after being away for X years), I could probably pass as someone not on the edge of calling it quits.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Couple of additional thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>If neither of us are working, then we&#8217;d have to pay for health coverage out of pocket. We need to ensure this cost is part of the decision.<\/li>\n<li>I get 75% of my annual bonus in April &#8212; which <em>might<\/em> encourage me to stick around until then.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;ve been trying to figure out what to do with my life. You might be thinking: What? Tom, you&#8217;re turning 60. Your life is pretty established. BUT, my challenges are: I\u2019m fit and healthy, and am confident I\u2019m going to live a long life. (My parents are 30+ years older than me and still &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/?p=308\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Now What?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}