Thanks everyone for the thoughtful and insightful replies.
@never give up - I think that’s true, the timing of quitting has really not been great. A lot of the things I had envisioned doing aren’t possible due to the pandemic, so the decompression period is feeling very isolated and confined. There are certain ‘decompression activities’ that are suitable to confinement though - yoga and mediation as you mentioned, as well as reading, doing artistic hobbies, writing, etc. I have been doing all of these in small amounts but they don’t really fill my days enough. Once the decompression period is done I imagine I’ll be able to get more established in a bigger creative project like writing a book or something similar but for now that is just too ambitious. I’m trying to avoid doing anything too strenuous. (I think that’s the crux of the problem - trying to fill my decompression time without doing anything too ambitious!)
Things I could do more of: going for walks, maybe more yoga and meditation, more workouts. One great thing about physical activity is it often shuts down the brain chatter really well. I have practiced meditation and with regular practice it can really help but on some days I find the mental chatter just gets worse when I sit. So - exercise may be the way to go on those days.
I like the idea of having an after-work ritual. We tend to eat dinner fairly early so usually it’s just shutting down the computer and starting dinner but maybe there’s something else I can do to shut down the mental chatter. I like the idea of doing a quick post-work meditation and using ‘letting go’ or something similar as a mantra like
@happy mentioned. Even 5 minutes of that would be a good practice, I think.
After reading the replies I gave it some more thought. I had a particularly bad week this week - often times I CAN get by just doing the work and not really being aware of whatever politics are unfolding behind the scenes. Anyway, I have been thinking that I could use some stoic practice here, when it comes to dealing with the politics. My contract is ending at the end of September. I can imagine the ‘worse case’ scenario (which may be a best case), when the contract ends and they don’t renew it. (Low likelihood of that but with the pandemic you never know.) In this case I will look for freelance work so that I can remain in the work force but just do part time work on that basis. This would probably cover my expenses. I also have >2 years worth of cash at the moment in savings, not even looking at income from dividends and all that. So … nothing really to worry about. I'm not interested in getting another FT job at the moment and there's not much PT in my field (which is the main reason I stay at my current job.) But I can eventually look around for freelance gigs if it comes to that.
Ideally I don’t want to touch the cash as it’s more of a buffer for sequence of returns risk in actual full-on retirement.
So as
@Aunt Petunia mentioned I could be prepared to take on another job, which does give me a sense of control. I will be updating my resume and website this week (an update which is long overdue.)
@Freedomin5 thanks for your perspective. I agree having something to FIRE towards is key. I have plenty of things to do, but little willpower to do it, which I think comes from the bad timing that NGU mentioned. I feel like my decompression period has been compromised by the stress of Covid (which, as someone else mentioned, is not the worst problem to have.)
@okits you are right about the ingrained habits. I hadn’t really considered that when I planned to go from FT to PT at my current workplace. I thought the resentments would fade but they’re still there. And yes, there is a part of me that finds it hard to slow down and take a second seat. I knew that would happen though, and have taken that as the tradeoff to having more freedom. I will definitely have to get used to taking the back seat and go into ‘not my circus’ mode.
@BigMoneyJim it sounds like we’re in a similar boat. Yes, not a bad problem to have, but it is a unique, once in a lifetime sort of challenge.
@jim555 as others said it gets harder to stay on full time as you get close to your FIRE goal. Funnily enough, as stressful as the pandemic situation has been, it actually has been much less stressful working part time through all of this than full time at my job in pre-pandemic times. Which is an indication how stressful the job was. For some of us the stress of full time just takes too big a toll on mental and physical health. I definitely do not regret going Coast FIRE at all - I just need to figure out this decompression space.
A lot of it also comes down to giving myself permission to just not do much of anything at all. Maybe sitting and reading a book outside for an entire day would be a good activity. I usually reserve this sort of thing for weekends only but - why? So, this sort of thinking needs to be reconsidered. I need to fully allow myself to not do anything too ambitious or in any way work related. (I work in a creative field so even creative projects can seem strenuous right now. Hopefully that will change.)
Thanks again everyone for the replies. It's been really helpful to hear others' perspectives.