I retired from corporate life on June 19, 2026. I’m not the type to relax, but I’m super excited about the change. The first five months I’ll live out of a suitcase, taking an RV from Milwaukee to Seattle via Colorado and Utah and Montana parks, then a one way cruise from Seattle to Tokyo to spend a couple months in Asia. I am so lucky!
Once I sort of settle in Seattle, I can spend all those hours I used to trade for salary on my second career and hobbies. It shocked me to learn in recent years that maybe half of people approaching retirement do so with anxiety or dread or ambivalence about what they’ll do. They’ve devoted so much of their identity and time to their career that they don’t have bucket lists waiting for the after! My bucket list is huge. Here is some of it:
- Learn how to play piano. I want to play Moonlight Sonata.
- Rebuild my classical guitar skills.
- Get 1-2 hours of exercise every day: Tai Chi or Yoga or golf or skiing or hiking or blading or lots of other things I love to do.
- Go sailing regularly, and get good at it.
- See new countries: Thailand, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Ireland, so many more I haven’t been to yet.
- See Beethoven’s Ninth at the Berlin Philharmonic.
- See the 1812 Overture in Moscow with real cannons, after Putin is dead.
- Take a train from Moscow to Beijing, after Xi Jinping is dead too.
- Portugal to Singapore by train.
- Lots more cruises.
- Lots more RV trips.
- Get fluent in Chinese and Spanish.
- Finish the four new books I’m writing.
- Get the agentic AI I’m building to the edge of sentience or beyond.
- Rebuild my ability to cook dinner — I’ve been deskilled by marrying someone who loves cooking and is just too good at it.
I approach all this with eager joy, and a deep gratitude that I’m in a position to enjoy it. I hope my books will provide people with ideas to live their own best life, in addition to giving some entertainment. It’s my favorite way to give back. I try to pour everything I know about life into them, all my regrets, my lessons, my ideas, my loves.
It’s a strange feeling, to not have work any more. I’m used to most of my energy 5 days a week going into my job, waking up thinking about it, going to sleep thinking about it. Now it’s sloughing away, slowly as I repeatedly remember it’s not my problem any more. Now 100% of my mental energy can go to personal pursuits. The freedom is joyful, amazing, and inspiring.
