The Work of Retirement

My wife and I first toured a part of Europe for our 41st anniversary, delayed by about a year.  I had just retired, planned the cruise in my final working months.  Lovely time, welcome vacation, time to be with my wife after a career that often left me too tired after a trying day at work and a tedious commute home each night.  Retirement is to do the things that you didn't get to do when work obligations dominated.  For a lot of people, that meant high grade travel.  For us timed when it most needed to be.  The Cruise of the Adriatic, real vacation, favorable intro to retirement possibilities.  

Now five years later.  Anniversary #46, second trip to Europe, this one without the ship but a single city so we do not have to move with our luggage on a tour bus every few days.  And we get more far more time in Paris than any cruise, river or sea, would afford its passengers at any port stop.

From early retirement to now settled retirement, seeing the world previously unavailable to us didn't happen.  Airplanes took us to visit the kids in distant cities, partaking of the sights in their areas while there.  My car enabled a few overnight trips, only one requiring a hotel stay to divide the driving to more than one day.  And my wife and I could be with each other as much as we want now.  But after 46 years, I go to My Space early morning and after supper, while she has her activities from high level choral singing, to a weekly Torah portion column that needs completion every Thursday, to a fondness for movies and a TV channel that I avoid on the big screen.  We meet up at supper and at bedtime.  Unlike work, we have no nudge to do anything different, including the grand travel.

As we prepare for our tour of Paris and environs, the perspective over these five years has shifted dramatically.  The cruise was a respite from work.  The upcoming tour is not a respite as much as the work of retirement itself.  While the foreign environment will likely be energizing, so will the relative novelty of being with each other from breakfast to the sightseeing itself to whatever activities we choose to do together after supper.  There is some agenda taken by the tour company, but other parts of the time away that become joint choices, where to eat, what else to see when Paris displays itself as the City of Lights. 

All this a clear demarcation from our daily routines, which really are not part of retirement's agenda, to some arduous travel which is.  Planning, airport, customs, hotel, tour appointments, return.  The Work of Retirement.  But like most directed efforts, it has its own enrichment.

Mind Prods

Senior and retired.  Every day a stream of challenges, mostly imposed upon me.  In grade school somebody else set the curriculum and I complied.  Once college arrived I had some discretion of what I wanted to study.  There were classes, there were social encounters.  Come medical school the curriculum was again mostly imposed but rigorous, challenging me most waking hours.  Then residency and career, some forty years of this, with patients in a continuous stream needing guidance, often me needing to learn more from either consultants or study.  Retirement resets that.  There are no mental imperatives other than what I create.  So what have I created?

Not a trivial undertaking.  I still keep a subscription to my favorite medical journal and read two articles from it each week.  I subscribe to The Atlantic and The Forward, reading one article a day from the former, two from the latter, and making an effort to comment to the author.  As much as I generally detest Twitter, this seems the most expeditious platform for feedback, though private emails to authors often get a response.  For a long time I had to produce a column for Medscape each month.  Not being personally within the medical loop, the quality of my submissions waned so I gave it up.  I do not have a substitute.  Still, I have maintained furrydoc.com, striving for a submission each day, irrespective of whether anyone reads my comments.  They are still personal expressions.  

I make an effort to watch a TED talk each day, and do pretty well with this.  A reading quota used to appear on my semi-annual projects list.  I dropped this initiative, as I was already doing it without having to target it for special attention.  Three books every half-year, one audio, one e-book, one traditional with subjects distributed over fiction, non-fiction, and Jewish.  Two months into this cycle, I've done two e-books, fiction and Jewish.  

My day starts with crosswords.  I enjoy doing them, though I'm not particularly adept.  I could try to get more proficient by either looking up clues, which I regard as cheating though it's probably really educational, or looking up and studying the final answer to the clues I missed.  But right now, I think just the recreational element of thinking what the letters should be will suffice.

Each school term, I take courses at the Osher Institute, usually four, usually lecture format.  I used to like to take discussion style classes but those have become less available since the pandemic.

And each Monday evening I make a YouTube video where my talking head discusses a topic for about seven minutes.

While I've done well with petty expression, what I've not done well, indeed underperformed, has been replacing that monthly Medscape column with presentations of comparable length requiring comparable effort that others may want to read.  I try, but have been inconsistent with output.  It's one thing to sit through lectures or read articles of other people's minds, quite another to create my own.  As valuable as being part of the audience has been, I need to focus more effectively as a content creator.  That's where this set of semi-annual projects directs me.  Good attempts.  Not good consistency.  Focus on this.  My senior mind depends on it.

Morning Routine

 

While working on a presentation on retirement, I discovered stages known to others who studied them but not to me. There is an initial Time Affluence.  It can become idle, and early on often is, but eventually gets replaced by routines.  These tend to do better if self-directed rather than spontaneous, but either way they form with a life of their own.  Having passed the two year mark, the demarcation point that the studies suggest, my own routines have settled at the beginning of each day, less so at the end, and can remain flexible for the many hours in-between.

Wanting to feel rested amid often disrupted sleep, I set myself on a Sleep Hygiene program that worked well until recent weeks when early awakening has reappeared. The core of any Sleep Hygiene program is a fixed get up time, which I set as 6:30 and adhered to within a half hour, though I am rethinking this as the rest of the day is often better if I postpone this until I am more rested. Partial grooming comes next, the electric toothbrush with manual on shabbos, flossing with a Placker, moisturizing my forehead.  On Monday mornings I also weigh myself.  Once upright, I try to stay upright, usually but not always successfully.  To the kitchen next for coffee and washing a rack of last night's dishes.  I will often take out recycling and retrieve the newspaper to the front door for my wife. Coffee then gets transported to My Space where I look at email, Twitter, and FB, usually in that order, except for the days divisible by 4 which gives me a hiatus from social media.  The tasks outlined the day before get reviewed, with a rough ranking of importance, or at least commitment to doing the ones I really intend to complete. 

Now ready to go.  More often than not, furrydoc.blogspot.com entry comes next. Or right after that second cup of coffee.

Retirement Anniversary

Today marks one year since my retirement, though not necessarily since being a physician which has a way of appearing in different forms.  I've made one major trip, two brief overnight trips but not that much travel.  I still submit my monthly Medscape column, though it was a lot easier to do when part of medicine's pageant.  Even more so with KevinMD which has no forced deadline.  They have a dearth of retirees there.  I made sure that Sermo, which has funnelled into something of an echo chamber, gets rationed severely.  I don't miss it, even if it might have been my principle post-retirement connection to fellow physicians.  Facebook had become a time sink of little enduring value which I had to set limits twice, having failed on the first attempt.  My Ramapo High chums and less than chums have also largely retired.  I opted not to greet them panim el panim a few months ago for a lot of reasons ranging from expense to more fundamental principles of fairness and opportunity when they gathered for a 50th Reunion.  FB, while not an echo chamber, was a time sink that disclosed more about the people who lurk in cyberspace than I really want to know.

My house, long since paid for, has gotten attention.  The kitchen was redone while I was still working.  I struggle with clutter but enjoy using what is there.  My study has been recaptured as My Space, the kind of retreat, maybe even dorm room, that I was never able to afford, though not so elaborate as to be a monument to myself.  And clutter needs to be addressed, which I am doing one small piece at a time, though with a reasonably visionary end point.

I fish less, exercise more, garden about the same.  My need for dress clothing approaches nil, mainly synagogue.  And to my surprise, and maybe to my regret, I do not really miss or seek out the pageant that absorbed my working lifetime.

Rationing Social Media

In retirement, I have minimal must do now impositions on each day.  In one respect, it is freedom, control over my time, in another work has been replaced by other things that control my time, mostly by allure.  There are days when I can never get enough Facebook, even though most of my Friends, who are really more contacts, have either become less present, gotten snoozed for annoying me, or haven't yet gotten snoozed because my fondness for them overrides the endless political postings.  And no doubt I've done the same to others, which may be in part why their participation has waned.  Is it an addiction?  A Psychology Today essay by an addiction specialists suggests not.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/201805/addicted-social-media

But the allure is such that I become a clock watcher in its absence.  No electronics on shabbos, but I have become more aware of Havdalah time and what I plan to do shortly thereafter.  No screens from 11PM to 5:30AM, more to promote sleep, but from about 4:30AM onward, the red digits on the behind bed clock may as well count down instead of up.  Dr. Griffiths, author of the article, recognizes the sense of deprivation, what might be happening to the world when I am not part of it?

Rationing as in shabbos and overnight has helped, but I gave myself a two day more comprehensive trial this week.  So far so good, but I still have the urge.  It may be like choosing Kosher.  People give up pork, then lobster, then cheeseburgers.  Eventually they look for hechshers and one day they no longer miss the clam chowder or even think about it.  I suppose FB can go that route, Sermo largely has, but access to cyberspace is a lot more beneficial than access to shrimp scampi so it may not be all that realistic to promote electronic celibacy.  Time constraints and participatory limitations may have to suffice.  I'll have a better sense of this tomorrow when I am looking forward to posting again after 48 hours avoidance.  Enrolling in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seems premature.

Anhedonia

Been feeling inexplicably down for a few weeks.  Not despondent or hopeless.  Just not motivated, which can be a big impediment if there are no assigned tasks, one of the realities as six months of retirement approaches.  I force myself to do things:   get up at the assigned time, stay awake until the assigned time, read a chapter of the book I am working on each day.  I go out each day, sometimes purposeful like grocery shopping or taking advantage of the $1 coffee promotion at WaWa, sometimes get out for the purpose of getting out to a regional mall to walk around.  I've gotten desperate enough to set time aside for television.  Extracting pleasure from any of this has not gone very well.  Exercise has been on schedule and I feel decent, just with an overwhelming ennui.  Chronic SSRI has tamed my compulsivity.  Not a good time for a drug holiday.  Tasks on my daily list just stay there.  Best option might be to focus on a few things that have a defined end point and see if finishing them adds to an inner satisfaction, if not to pleasure.

Getting Up Early

Off Topic, maybe.

I'm now three months into retirement, planned for five years, financially secure my adviser tells me.  I find it hard, indeed unfathomable, to start a workday at 7:30AM when I would typically leave home and go straight through to 6:30PM when I would get home.  My day has become short bursts of activity with lulls or diversions, though some are productive.  That's not to say I haven't done worthwhile things.  I've been to Europe for the first time.  I exercise on schedule, interrupted by days of quadratus lumborum pain.  My diet is better but my waist circumfrence and weight have not changed in the two years I have kept records.  Each day I have a list of more things than I can do, but focus on two or three, sometimes substantive like decluttering the study to be my reclusive space, more often trivial like doing the laundry. 

I have a few time restrictions that have served me well.  No food from 8PM to 6AM based on a study that showed better weight control by doing this irrespective of what is eaten at the other times and no internet from 11PM to 5:30AM, originally intended to sleep better but not terribly successful at that, though with other merits to justify keeping the restrictions going.

Today I woke up in the middle of the night, tried to return to sleep, almost did and arose at 6:30.  Thought about going to a new local diner for breakfast, but opted for coffee at home via K-cups instead.  I did the rest of fleishig dishes, cold laundry, worked on Thanksgiving dinner, which is one of my annual projects, and in general feel more prepared for the rest of the day.  I've taken my weekly weight and waist measurements.  Uncertain on treadmill as I am still achy.  Limited Facebook and email which are my time sinks. 

I always knew I was a morning person. 

Projects

Each December and June I outline projects for the coming six months.  Usually there are six, some perennial that never get done, a  few finite that get checked off.  My health or weight is always among them but never gets its check mark.  I want to do research and to have my writing more widely acknowledged.  These past two half-years I have had twelve, which makes weekly planning easier than when I had six but the focus was better with fewer in number.  While away, I had some time to work on the coming semi-annual projects, choosing to limit it again to six with end points that are more finite than in the past.  The other six remain in the background.  Eventually I will get around to becoming more proficient with the harmonica and settling Dad's estate but they are secondary to the things I really have a desire to accomplish.  My health is not on it for the first time in decades.  But that is something that needs to be absorbed into ordinary activities and not a point of isolated focus.

So here are the six, subject to another week's or so modification, all with accomplishment deadlines of next New Year's Day.

1. I will have submitted a poster proposal for next year's Endocrine Society meeting.  This is something very doable, though I am not sure I really want to go to next year's Endocrine Society meeting in Chicago.  My interest has shifted from the technicalities of endocrinology toward the way it is practiced, how one disseminates the principals to a core of residents who will soon be primary practitioners and hospitalists actually doing the work.
2. I will have submitted a formal estate plan to an estate plan attorney.  This one just needs a couple of Sundays or perhaps a Fourth of July and Labor Day to review forms, fill them out and then find an attorney to guide me.  It has been procrastination at its most overt.
3. The places in my home where I actually spend my time will be decluttered and clean.  I spend time in the kitchen, bedroom and family room couch.  I eat in the dining room and have created a favorite nook with a fold-down desk in the living room that should be more of my professional area than it currently is.
4. My blog will be widely read and commented upon.  I have a book on Blogging for Dummies that I mostly read.  I understand the principles and have two topics, the decline of synagogue life and professional dissatisfaction with life as a physician that I know have a potential audience.  One of the phenomena of AKSE and I'm sure a lot of other places is that as people vote with their feet and the baalebatim complain about attrition, nobody solicits the thoughts of the dissatisfied to try to accommodate them without disrupting the core activities of the synagogue.  When I recently decided to become an observer, setting aside any active participation, I got an expected measure of negative feedback in the form of scorn for having acted that way.  What I did not get was any solicitation whatever of why I came to my conclusion.  If nobody wants to solicit my thoughts and my thoughts are important just the same, I will have to volunteer and disseminate them.
5. I will have submitted four articles for print publication.  Another perennial.  But finite.
6. The denouement of my professional career will be put in place.  I set my Retirement Countdown Clock as a birthday present to myself a few months ago.  While I like what I do, I like other things as well and really do not want to spend my final years in active practice doing exactly what I've done before.

Seems like a pretty decent list with reasonable justification.  Next step is to carve out dedicated time to do these things, which means a schedule and time in which patients are not continually coming at me.  I think I can do these.  Will assess progress each month.

Two Days Off

Two vacation days to try out retirement.  That was not the initial purpose, which really included neglected chores like my finances, taxes, dental work, auto service, and drivers license renewal, all of which got done.  Most of it got done the first day, leaving me with some open ended time the second day.  I do not expect to last a whole lot longer at Mercy Philadelphia Hospital.  As much as I like being with the patients and meeting the residency program challenges, the time and effort involved have taken its toll on me personally.  I work at higher volume than what the people who run the place are used to and try not to be too demanding.  While I keep up with the work, the interest in removing the impediments which would enable me to do things that cannot be done when people are just tossed at you with little notice or planning just isn't there.  They are happy with having me as a Golden Goose and don 't realize that they will eventually slaughter it.

For me the question has been what would I do instead if I did not have to schlep off to work each day.  Might it drive me nuts?  So far it hasn't because I have other things that I might like to do instead.  I'd certainly like to get my house up to speed and have the funds to do it now.  My finances also need to be brought up to speed.  In both cases the rigors of my job have been real impediments.  I listened to a full lecture on yutorah.org for the first time in a while.  I used to listen to this a lot but I come home from a long day wanting nothing better than to be left alone while I see who posted what on Facebook.  I travel once a month as an escape.  I'd much prefer to travel as a destination without a clear deadline for getting back.  While getting my car serviced, I decided to write an essay that I've neglected for some time.  For an hour I had no place to go and no distractions.  I jotted down the thoughts though not having done this for a long time, I struggled with the actual composition.

A Facebook Friend recently allowed me to get reacquainted.  I knew he became an attorney and has what seems to be a solo practice, on only his name as the identity of his firm.  I also learned from his postings that he has become a ski enthusiast and a cycling enthusiast, spending a fair sum on each to say nothing of prioritizing them into his personal schedule.  Myra has her dogs.  Irene has Torah Portion Humor and Choral Music.  I never really developed an insatiable interest in anything, even though there are many things I like doing.  One probably does not really need that to retire successfully but there has to be some type of activity agenda.  I learned from my two days for myself that I can occupy my time in a productive way, both accomplishing a doable list of well-defined chores and absorbing time in a suitable way when it comes in a more amorphous fashion.