The august Wall Street Journal recently ran a section called “10 Subtle Signs That You Are Ready to Retire.” Among the signals: you arrive at work feeling numb, you avoid promotions, you notice your peers are gone and/or you hate your boss. The main takeaway: “If you’re that unhappy, it’s time to take action.” There was NO mention of if you can afford to retire, something that I think takes precedent over hating your boss or feeling numb. And frankly I can’t think of a boss I had in my 45 years of grinding the millwheel that I didn’t intensely dislike. Including – or perhaps especially - when I was self-employed.
But there are tons of other indications that you no longer should be working, among them:
Your wife asks you to get exactly two things at the Publix, and after you retrieve the first, you have to call her to find out what was second on the list. And, no, it wasn’t the Cheetos or the Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies sitting in your cart.
You have to relent and agree that one of your Gen X kids has a valid point.
You must pull out of the car wash line because the quarters in your cup holder are no longer accepted.
When during a dinner party argument over who was better: The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, someone of your generation tosses in a band that you’ve never even heard of. And worse, you are not entirely sure who that lady is married to.
Your gardener can’t figure out why you suddenly care if the anemones will look better than the Italian Ranunculus. She ups her hourly rate.
You have to relent and agree that your wife has a valid point.
You refuse to go to some neighbor’s kid’s wedding because you’ll miss the Georgia-Alabama game. You speculate on the sexual orientation of someone who plans a wedding on an October Saturday.
One of your offspring sends you a social media post and you have to quietly call one of your other kids to help you find and open it. And then probably explain why it is funny.
The company is rumored to be about to launch a reduction in force, and you realize you are the second most expensive employee in your department. And at your age it is pointless to update your resume (which by the way, has now turned into a website.)
You start a lengthy argument with your wife because she snuck onions in with the ground beef. ONIONS!!!! Really???
You never let your gas tank get less than 80% full. Even though your longest drive in the past month was to the airport and back.
The price of that “second home” you were looking at in Kiawah just passed $2 million. When you add up the cost to fix all of those things you “put off” in your current home, you wonder how your kids would feel if you moved to their city (they won’t like it).
You get the “if you think for a minute, you are going to sit around this house all day in your pajamas….” lecture every week instead of every month.
You try to keep up with all of the developments in AI, but honestly can’t get beyond asking CHATGPT the best way to cook a pork tenderloin on the grill.
One day you realize that when you walk into a cocktail party filled with incredibly attractive people of the opposite sex, you are utterly invisible to them.