Author Topic: Decompression Time Post-FIRE  (Read 24904 times)

soccerluvof4

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #50 on: October 24, 2015, 06:11:26 AM »
Personally I haven't had time to decompress. I feel busier than when I worked but doing things i want to do. The days seem to fly by BUT i do have total shutdown days which I couldn't all those years I worked and they feel well deserved. Someone else mentioned better sleep and that has been the biggest notice of change for me. I am not exaggerating that i sleep twice as much as I use too and a lot of times like the ole man in the chair that nods off because I am just a lot more relaxed in life. For me it my change alot when the kids start going off to college and all....we will see!

smoghat

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #51 on: November 04, 2015, 07:15:16 AM »
I'm not sure when I went FIRE, I guess last May (or maybe this September) and I'm still decompressing.

Part of it is that I worked three jobs (sometimes four), teaching full time and being paid full time at one university (this also involved research and publication), running a family apartment building remotely (4 hours a week usually, but sometimes a bit of stress), and teaching overseas four weeks out of the year (one week at a time). I was let go from my university position since we had a new Dean and she cut a bunch of jobs, mine included (as she said and as was obvious from who she cut besides me, there was no reflection on merit, she only cut us because she could eliminate the positions and was a penny pincher) and about that time I got an amazing offer (double what I expected) on the building. I've retained the overseas position. It's a little bit of a hobby too and in May my wife and I went out on a trip around the country for a week, staying either at the university's expense or at the director's country house as we are friends. I'm always told I can vacation at his places if I want, so I'm kind of keeping that in mind too.

The thing of it also is that my mom died in September, just a couple of weeks after I sold the building (which was officially hers but really mine), so that was about the time that everything I normally did came to an end. No more calls to my building manager or to her. She wasn't well for years, and the calls with her left me disconcerted more than anything, but still.

There's part of decompression that I am finding a bit alienating and that's the loss of these ties to my past. No more teaching full time in the fall, which means the loss of  that rhythm which I have only missed three years of since I was a kid (my kids are still going to school). No more talks with my building manager (who I knew since I was 5 and have talked to once a week since 1998), no more calls to my mom or knowledge that she is there. I'm glad I still have my overseas position, but due to my mom's death, the two weeks have loaded up at a time when I also have to do various home related things (stain the deck, paint the stairs), so I'm under a bit of stress. Over the summer I had lost weight and cut back on bad habits like eating dessert and  drinking too much beer and wine (I don't get drunk, but do drink too much for my health since I have high blood pressure and am a little overweight). So I still feel the need to decompress.

Part of this is a loss of ties and a need to build new ones and I think this is a big part of FIRE.

My colleagues at work are all working way too hard to have time to hang out. We talked about this a lot, about how we don't ever get together for dinner or hang out. So we'd see each other for lunch and now that's gone. Some of my best friends (the entire class of people like me) lost their jobs too so they have largely left the area. For the rest, it's not like I want to actually go to the the school cafe and visit that place, you know? Meanwhile, there aren't many people my age (47) who have attained FIRE and my friends around here are working full time jobs, so that's out too.

Thankfully my wife isn't working so I have her, but I don't want to drive her crazy with my projects either.

So how does one rebuild one's connections to the world around them?   

chasingthegoodlife

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #52 on: November 11, 2015, 01:43:50 AM »
I'm not FIRE yet, but I just switched jobs to improve my work-life balance (drastically shorter commute, got away from a situation where the team was always in crisis, I was doing 2+ people's jobs at all times and my role kept changing). Of course the last few weeks were difficult as I took work home most nights trying to tie up loose ends so my clients would not be disadvantaged.

For the first few days afterwards I was an emotional mess. I felt so negative about myself (that I was a failure because I couldn't hack the pressure etc etc) and angry about so many things, some totally unrelated.

I have dreamed about work almost every night (this happened when I went on vacation too) and still find myself thinking and worrying about various problems I was working on at my last role, then reminding myself those are not my problems anymore.

Two weeks later I am starting to feel like I have got my life back. I have joined the local rec centre, started Yoga and gym classes, and have the time and energy to do more than eat and fall in a heap when I get home.  I am guessing it will take another few weeks or so for the dreams and worries to tail off.

This whole experience has really motivated me to keep working towards FI/FIRE - work shouldn't affect you like that, and I want the freedom to do what's right for me and my health. 

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #53 on: November 12, 2015, 09:03:39 AM »
Personally I haven't had time to decompress. I feel busier than when I worked but doing things i want to do.  ...

I always laugh (internally, or maybe with a hand covering my mouth if I'm with others) when I hear others say this.  It's the great irony of life, that it is just life.  For some folks, it is deplorable work, and for others it may be errands.  Ultimately, you might be 'working' or even 'doing what you want' but it is all work in an engineering sense.  And in a philosophical sense, even sleeping and eating are hard work for our physiology, so maybe we should call that work too?  So maybe the best work I can do involves sleeping as I wish (sometimes in a tent in the woods, sometimes in a hotel, sometimes at home with my wife or with my kids...), and don't even get me started on eating as I wish...

Just in a philosophical mood today, hope everyone is doing well and enjoying life :)

arebelspy

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #54 on: November 12, 2015, 11:10:50 AM »
You're 100% right, it's all... life.  Regardless of if you're ER or still working.

The difference is in choosing how you fill your time versus having a boss choose for you.

:)
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EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #55 on: November 12, 2015, 12:26:18 PM »
I guess I just enjoy ideas.  But yeah, if I had someone I didn't like telling me what to do with my time, I guess I'd have to demand to be paid more to put up with it.  That's why I like hanging out with FI people.

Threshkin

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #56 on: November 13, 2015, 10:42:17 AM »
This year I went from FI to FIRE and then back to FI. 

My 4 months of FIRE were totally insufficient to decompress. 

During the FIRE stage we were unable to really relax or travel because of family medical issues. (parents)

After I went back to FI status we had even more stress with my FIL dieing and my Mom being hospitalized (5 times in 2 months) and then entering a nursing home.

All this gave me a very different perspective on work though.  I still work hard but I do not stress over it and I am quicker to point out the inane aspects and offer to help improve processes.

Stress levels are starting to reduce now.  Mom is settling in.  We are recovering from the grief of loosing my FIL.  We just completed a 9-day road trip that was very refreshing and are discussing our next holiday.

Sooner or later stress will increase again, my mom's and my MIL's conditions will eventually decline.  But we have accepted that this is life and will deal it when it happens.

Recognizing that we are FI is very freeing but other aspects of life limit the value of RE at this time.

arebelspy

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #57 on: November 13, 2015, 10:56:56 AM »
Sorry for your loss.  :(
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

choppingwood

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #58 on: November 14, 2015, 04:56:53 PM »
So how does one rebuild one's connections to the world around them?

What a lot of change you have had!

My adult life has been very, very focused on career. I have also moved about and done contract work, so there hasn't be the kind of continuity of connection that you describe.

To get to know people in my retirement location, I have gone to anything that vaguely interests me that also allows me the chance to talk with people and get to know them. (For example, book club, Indian cooking class, working as a census enumerator, working on election day, working half a day a week at the library.) Since I stopped working (that happened a few years after I moved to my retirement location), I have taken on one new project or activity a month. If I don't like it, I stop. But gradually, the connections are building. I do have a focus now on community development and fixing up my fixer-upper. 

You will find people who are free at different times of day or different days of the week, even if they are working. Lots of people I know have had a period of being sad -- it is OK to do that. It is also a time to explore ideas about what kinds of things you might want to do, without landing exactly on what it is going to be yet. You could read some of William Bridges's work on transitions, if you find that kind of thing helpful.

jim555

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #59 on: November 20, 2015, 01:11:09 PM »
I have been FIREd a little over a year.  I would say it took a year to get my "sea legs" and settled into the new life.

Upstate NYer

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Re: Decompression Time Post-FIRE
« Reply #60 on: October 24, 2016, 12:01:14 PM »
Thanks for all of the great responses!

While I think going part-time first made making the decision to pull the plug completely in 13 weeks easier, I don't think working part-time necessarily prepares you for full retirement...

 

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