Replying to a commenter

Transcript

Sir Papa Fresh brings up a really great point. When we retire, and those of us who already sort of struggle with not being productive anymore and are already struggling with retiring, when someone says to us, oh, I could never retire, I've just got to be working, they don't mean to cause us stress, anxiety, hurt our feelings, but it really does bug us. When someone says that, when we first retire and we're already struggling with retiring, we hear, I'm just not a lazy person. I have to work. So I'm lazy because I want to retire, because you could never retire because you always have to, you know, you feel like working is important. And, you know, it's another thing people, I think, don't mean to do when they say it, but it, and it doesn't affect everyone, but it does affect people who've spent their whole lives being brainwashed that our only value is in what we produce for others. And so how I handle it, Sir Papa Fresh asks, you know, what do you do in that situation? I'm a lawyer. I made excuses. I rambled. I did what I call performative retirement, where I like talked about all the things I was up to. And then I realized what was happening and I got over it. Then what I started doing was I started seeing them for what they are. Most of them are workaholics. And I mean that in the clinical sense, like any other aholic. So when they would say to me, oh, I could never retire, I felt sorry for them. I'd say, yeah, I understand. I didn't, look at it like it was an indictment on me. I looked at it like they were literally telling on themselves to me that they've never been able to regulate themselves to a point where they could just be with themselves and not be dealing with a hundred things coming from all directions that they get from work. And I'm not talking about the people who work because they, they need to work for financial reasons. I'm talking about the people that could retire financially, but say to retired people, oh, I could never do what you're doing. I'm just too much of a worker. And so look at it like they're just telling on themselves. They're telling you about a disability they have that they just haven't recognized or started to deal with.