So why am I bothering with this website/blog? Surely retirement is a piece of cake? Well, in talking to old colleagues about retirement a regular comment I heard was ‘I could never retire as I can’t think of what else I would do’. Hardly a ringing endorsement for working. For me, the decision to quit was easy – I just wasn’t enjoying it. Going in everyday to get moaned at and having little or no social interaction other than the moaning was taking its toll so I had to change it up.

My dissatisfaction of work had quite a fundamental impact on me – I had become very insular and because of the commute and energy levels expended in the course of the day I had nothing left in the tank for the evening. My social life was negligible and my interests/hobbies out of work were none. I assume some of my old colleagues were in the same boat as me, so its no wonder why they couldn’t imagine retiring. Retire to what exactly?

My first blog discussed the impact that Don Ezra had on me and introduced me to the discipline of planning. In answering the question I posed in the first line, this website/ blog is my way of planning what’s next, and also has the impact of creating a ‘purpose’, but more of that in later blogs.