Work ethic dies hard
By: Ron Wayne
Tags: Leisure, Retirement Planning, Work Ethic, Retirement Living, Retirement

Image by jordan3600 from Pixabay

Do I really deserve this time?

I’m feeling lazy, and I don’t like it.

I was raised with an incredibly strong work ethic. My Dad bragged that he worked three jobs most of his life: toiling in a factory, playing in his band on weekends and maintaining the rental apartments we owned. Mom ran a successful catering business for years, feeding hundreds at a time for wedding receptions, bridal showers, picnics and Christmas parties.

As the only child at home after I turned 10, I was expected to help with yard work on our half-acre of suburbia and to shovel snow, and there was a lot of that in Erie. As I grew older, I started working for Mom on weekends, bussing tables and washing dishes, pots and pans at the various clubs and church halls where she catered. When I was 14, Dad bought his beloved “cottage” in a small lake community south of Erie. I hauled a lot of dirt, cut grass, planted shrubs, put up a fence, painted, etc.

After college, I embarked upon my newspaper career, where long hours are a given. Over 26 years, I didn’t mind if I had to work overtime, whether I was paid or not. Not being the fastest writer in the world, I was often the last reporter to leave the newsroom. In various editing positions, I was the person who needed to check the press runs, so there was no leaving for a bar with the rest of the crew on an evening shift.

Even in my most recent full-time job, which was unrelated to my degrees and experience, I often stayed longer than others. I just didn’t like to leave a task for the next day even if I no longer had an immediate deadline. And I wasn’t as fast with some of the programs, especially Excel.

After 42 years of working, it’s hard to let go of this work ethic, so here I sit, feeling as though I should be doing more each day. It has been just two plus months, but I still have a long unfinished list of “immediate” goals, mostly related to reorganizing my condo.

Many articles on retirement cite the work of sociologist Robert Atchley who said there were five stages: pre-retirement, honeymoon, disenchantment, reorientation and moving on. He describes the honeymoon as time to start our bucket list and “living the dream.”

I’m not living the stereotypical honeymoon for two reasons: I’m not as financially solid as many retirees, and life choices are limited during a pandemic. Therefore after less than three months, I’m a bit disillusioned. But I also take comfort and satisfaction in simply reaching a goal every day, however minor.

This article has good advice on how to maintain some sense of productivity so you don’t slide into inertia, which I can see happening. I was already doing the following before I found her column:

Try to sleep a regular schedule, and it’s now easier to go for eight hours.

Consistently take a daily walk outside that takes almost an hour.

Write lists (but I need to use more technology so I’m more organized).

Plan my menus and related trips to stores and my other activities such as laundry, exercise and writing.

At the same time, I don’t want to become overbooked and too busy. I still want to be a bit more casual about life. I earned that, right?