The joy of early retirement

I have no words to be fair to it

Don't get me wrong. Retirement (even if early) doesn't remove all stresses in your life. It didn't do that for me.

But it DOES remove a huge chunk of stress that was previously direct and indirectly due to my employment. 

Working with a global team but being based in Singapore, I have spent almost 20 years of my working life juggling between 3 times zones or sometimes even 4. Think of having team mates based in UK, France, USA, India all at once. 

My working hours aren't a standard 9-6 block, but a fragmented time throughout my day, and sometimes even my Saturday mornings if I want to catch folks in US West Coast on their Fridays.

So while my total work hours are probably in the typical range of 50hrs per week, it actually feels more like 70 hours. 

Why?

In between my working hours that were split up, I ran errands, fetch kids, make meals, do housework. These are all intentional, as I don't have the luxury of "after work" hours blocks to do these. So the context switching of my mind is crazy, and takes a huge toil on my mental and physical health. 

As much as I think I managed to get used to this and get it working mostly fine, I know at the back of my mind that I am walking on a thin thread of wire. A cock up, and the crash will be very painful and hard to recover, and ironically that added more stress, to ensure this whole system don't fail lol.

So I never ever switch off from work. Imagine 20 years of that

Now you can understand what joys my early retirement brings. 

I still have stress now, stress from running the family, stress from taking care of my mental and physical well being, as well as to ensure the money works. But this is nothing compared to the huge chunk that was removed after leaving the working world that I was part of. 

So, don't ask me what I use my time for now that I am retired. 

Its none of your business

its not for you

I will enjoy my life.

A good life

and I will take care of myself and my loved ones

respect again

 its very hard to get over it

respect for one another is basic decency

respect for your life partner is a requirement

maybe it reflected how I behaved myself?

Its horrible

that I even have to doubt myself now

why do I have to endure this

who the hell berate your parent and expect you to be ok with it?

so, we are like punching bags?

I have less than 50% battery life left

why should I put up with this shit

if I don't put a stop on this, my children will do the same to me, since "he put up with it before"

time to take action

get the things lined up

I am extremely good with planning

so I will use this skill to safeguard myself

so I can easily flip the switch off and I won't suffer

time to hunker down and get ready for battle

a battle that I don't intend to lose

Respect

PCB really no more respect for me.

Other day raised voice at my mum 

If I do that to your mum, you can take it? I don’t think so

My mother also endure and just let it go without taking to me about it later. She knows not to make a bigger deal out of it to reduce damage 

Then few days later, raise voice and argue with me at counter in front of waitress, over a simple lunch order. And I wasn’t even wrong. 

I really hate it when this happens. What do you expect me to do? Shout back at you? Or say sorry ? No good outcome at all. You don’t give me face, and you want me to give you face?

Who am I? 

CCB

connecting with your child

 Sometimes, when we take time and effort to listen first and then provide light touch of guidance or simply rephrase expressions into more adult like sentences, it can create maigc

not always, but when it happens, you will feel it

and its really magical

its like you unlocked a new level in a game

The feeling when your child talks enthusiastically about something to you, and how he or her face lights up or nods when you say something in response. 

These are precious moments in life. way more important and memorable than any work achievements or promotions or extra bonuses. 

These are things you will bring to grave, happily 

I am glad that I have an expanse of freedom to continue to explore opportunities to create such moments in my life. Maybe it doesn't do much for the child, its more for me. But I want to believe at least it will do something for my child. It definitely does magic for me as a parent. 

I thank the good fortune. 

floating

 I feel I am floating

No, I am not high from painkillers lol

Still, because I need to focus on resting, I feel I am just doing nothing. No housework, no going out, nothing to clean, no exercise. 

But I do make some investments as usual, so its not that bad

But I am not complaining. 

I don't have stress, or at least its very low level normal stress of daily living. 

No money worries, though the recent turmoil in SG market did rattle me a little, but I think I have come to terms with it now

Just have to watch my expenses, but at same time, if its money well spent, I should proceed.

Tomorrow is not a given as everyone like to say

RIP to the young 25yo lady who was killed in a car accident, caused by a DUI driver. I am so sorry to hear about your demise. At the prime of your life, just when you were ready to get married, move to new flat and perhaps looking forward to having babies. Please RIP. Take comfort that the driver had been arrested and will face severe punishment since our laws on drink driving had been tightened recently. You will get justice for sure. 

Thank you for reminding me that life is unpredictable and therefore I should enjoy my life whenever I can and not get stressed out over little irritations. 

The fortune of retirement, an early one at that

 I am now recuperating from a procedure done to fix an old injury. Got 30 day sick leave from the hospital. 

Technically I don't need it of course, but its good to know that I will have 30 days of paid leave if I had been employed gainfully, to recover.

However, full recovery for this will take 3-6 months, which means if I were not retired, I could be going back to office after 30 days, while risking a slower recovery as I hustle during my day time, and potentially or more likely, I'll miss PT sessions, forget to do my routine PT work out as deemed necessary for my recovery. That would had been stressful though still doable. But I can imagine the mental load amid the stress of the work itself. 

I am so glad I am retired. I can do all the PT exercises according to specific routine and timelines. I can go take a nap if I feel tired, so my body can regenerate. I can also decide whenever, to get a good snack or meal to help my body.

This is good fortune. To be able to full focus on recovery, without the distractions and stresses from a full time job. And also, no worries about medical bills, since this is covered by my insurance. Plus I made the right choice to use subsidised public healthcare system, which is really excellent here in SG. 

I also gain a genuine appreciation of the hardworking that my government has put in to ensure we have excellent healthcare services at affordable prices. To people who keep whining, wait still its your turn to use it, and then come back to tell me if you still want to whine. 

Joy of driving

 Somehow, driving is a joy to me. Of course I don’t mean driving for a living or driving for very long period of time. I will get tired and sick of it if I drive for hours

But I definitely enjoy driving daily.

Now that I am retired, I get to drive everyday. Drive kid to school and then drive my lovely wife to office. And then I’ll bring her home after work. These 20-30 min drives are pleasantly joyful for me. I’ll still get mad at drivers in SG, there are so many fuckards here. But I think I mostly can manage it and still enjoy my drive.

It definitely costs me a lot over the last 20years. From COE of $10000 to $110,000. Hahaha

No regrets whatsoever. I cannot imagine my life without the joy of driving. I’ll drive until my health makes it risky and stressful. Perhaps by then, self driving cars will be the norm anyway. 

Still wishing the stock market or Toto gods give me a shot at owning a nice Porsche 911 😅

Feeling tired easily and falling asleep in afternoon

 These few days I got tired easily and needed naps

Had a run yesterday after the haze abated a little to safe levels for exercise 

I think sweating out helps

Hopefully this is just a passing phase and not something serious

I suspect the haze 

Still, must soldier on and have fun in life 

have you tried retiring?

 I tried. For just over 1 year. It was a test run

Test for few things:

1. How my finances will turn out without a salary for 1 year

2. How my life will be like if I no longer need to work

Results:

1. Finances worked out as expected. Cashflow came in, expenses were as expected. No surprises. Well, there was one, which was the unexpected bull run in SG and US equities, which meant while I expected my net worth to drop as a spend more than my cashflow, it actually went up. So all good. But I remind myself that it was supposed to drop, so this is a bonus, which I will save for a rainy day in future

2. I tried to have a routine of things to do, including extending my professional skills by learning (try to) AI, coding, some mini projects. I was too ambitious on that front. I didn't do any of those in deep, just casual reading for fun. But that was enough. I realised that retirement is not about trying to become better version of your past professional life. I no longer am obliged to be upskilling what I had been doing for past 20+ years. I should find things I like to do for fun, not for career progression, not for possible re-entering the workforce. But I know I must work my mind to stay sharp, for my own sake. So its a matter of what do to, and I know what not to do. Just find things that flow. No need to force it. One of the best things the 1 year trail taught me....eat well, rest well, and exercise well. Take good care of my body, and the days will be wonderful. I have built a routine of eating a good breakfast, doing good stretches, and keeping fit by cycling and running regularly, and also doing push ups and squats to build strength in my limbs. I want to be able to carry things, walk and run well into my 70s. To enjoy life 

It was a good test

But it didn't totally remove my self doubts about whether it will work out fine since I am still young. 

That self doubt was erased after I went back to work for a few months. 

It crystallised my desires and wants. It confirmed to me that, given my fortunate circumstances of having a choice to retire or work, I should pick retirement. My job isn't something that I am 100% passionate about. Yes, I liked it, since it matches my strengths. And I was lucky to have worked with very good people who cared about me and respected me. But its not a calling of life for me. Its just a job, to pay the bills, to build a financial nest so I can take care of myself and my loved ones. So if it has reached its goal, I must carefully decide if I should continue to chase more, or move the goal post, or to ack that this phase is over and I am going to life a new phase of life

What's my calling?

I don't know. Maybe I will never have one, and that's totally fine

I just know I have responsibilities to myself and my family, and I'll be happy as long as I can deal with those. That's enough. That's actually a lot already

I am not some super hero 

roller coaster emotions with stock markets

 After retiring and getting off a regular income stream from paid work, all I have is income from dividends and interest payments from my investments.

Bulk of it comes from investments in stocks

And, when the stock market goes down and up, man...its very hard to be not affected

my mood changes

I think this is not right

I already did my math and posturing

I have sufficient cash buffers in USD and SGD such that I won't be forced to liquidate any stocks unless something really drastic happens (so 99% safe)

So why am I still affected by the undulations of the market, especially in the short to mid term? Over many years, it will be up. 

Well, I am human after all, I have fears too

So I think I should go through these emotions vs trying to forcefully suppress them. 

Sometimes in life, we have to feel things

Just don't get down all the time

Have some faith and confidence in your own abilities, and in my case, my computations and estimations. 

As long as I stick to plan, watch my discretionary spending, it will be fine!