Several years ago, I started thinking about, discussing and contemplating the “what if’s and hows and when’s” of actually retiring. I was burnt out and I knew it. Forty years getting up at the crack of dawn, commuting to work and then spending all day in a crisis mode dealing with the worry of loan approvals, interest rate fluctuations and lock ins and customers anxiety and complaints/criticisms was really getting to me. As much as I tried to have a balanced life by taking weekend breaks and vacations, every time I went away, I came back to even more stress and to playing catch up for days on end. I tried to take breaks during the day , too—by running off to the gym at mid day for an hour or so. Weekends were no better and although I attempted to de-stress by going for long jogs or working out at the gym, I knew that I had 100 or so emails to catch up on from late Friday afternoon.
So, one day I went to Barnes and Noble just for “shits and giggles”. (Read: to get away from the office because I was completely overwhelmed with being in a constant state of crisis). I have to admit that I was already 65 and I was already toying with the idea of hanging up the towel and trying something new. I’ve always browsed the business section there, mainly for standard work related ideas on managing my team or business building or maximizing profits. I even liked, bought, and read many of the books in that section that dealt with work/life balance. To be quite frank, none of them worked for me. And some of them were just plain ridiculous—I know Tim Ferris is a guru for so many business people out there, but a 4 day work week for mortgage loan officers??? You’ve got to be kidding! It was one of the few books I actually threw away.
So when I saw this book, I picked it up immediately and simply couldn’t put it down. A “gap” year for me—what a ridiculously out of the normal idea. Was that even possible? How intriguing—I mean I did it when I graduated from Princeton—I actually took a 5 year gap; teaching English in Spain for a year, working on a farm in the Bernese Oberland (Switzerland) for a couple of months, traveling all throughout Europe and Israel for literally years on end. I left the States in early July 1976 and didn’t return until April of 1981! But that was when I was single, had no mortgages to pay and no attachments to anyone whatsoever.
So, could I really pull it off now? It quickly dawned on me that a year off wasn’t possible (although I have to admit i’m still toying with the idea), but I know it isn’t practical. But what WAS practical and what actually excited me a lot more were the literally hundreds of other ideas that I gleaned form the book. Things such as volunteer work abroad, or senior Peace Corps, or house sitting in exotic locations could be done for shorter periods of time—a week as a minimum and others for a month or two or three. These seemed entirely possible and I highlighted every single possible option that I was interested in. One idea in particular caught my eye: I had always wanted to return to Spain to re-live my teaching experience there and I found several volunteer opportunities for week long gigs there to help Spanish executive with their English fluency. Here’s one of them:
https://volunteers.grupovaughan.com/programs/vaughantown/
The book has literally hundreds of other ideas for taking the gap year, whether it be post retirement (the easiest way) or to actually take a gap in career and then either return to the same career or start a new one! And, I might add—the book quite excellently provides advice on how to manage and arrange the year off with the okay from employers. Not only that, but it also provides a guide on how to take the time off and then possibly use some of the time to prepare for a new career!!
Take a look at one of the recommended web sites from the book:
https://www.goabroad.com/articles/gap-year/gap-year-for-over-50s
Reader: if you are either retired already, about to retire, or contemplating retiring, this is simply a book you have to pick up and read! It will change your life —at a minimum it will give you ideas and inspiration to help you decide how to create an incredible “post work” life.
