I love what I do (mostly). There are always parts of any job that are not fun, but have to be done, Documentation is one example. Describing how something freshly minted works or how to use it for someone else: boring.

Ah, “the job”. Working is way over-rated. If you define yourself by what you do, you are one sad case. Many who do define themselves in this way (the overachievers in life) find themselves an early grave after a few years of boredom after retirement.

Better: you can define yourself by your relationships, by who you have saved or helped over the years, or by your family; but please do not go in for living vicariously through your children. Perhaps better is to define yourself by your dreams! What do you expect to accomplish? As we age, must our goals age with us?

Still sader is defining yourself by what you own. “He who dies with the most toys, is still dead”. Better to give some of those toys to the living, they can make better use of the “stuff”. That revisits your relationships.

For now I am very much tied (ball-and-chain) to my job. There is no travel of any significance in my immediate future. Sucks, in a way. My premis is that I will be able to “get outta Dodge” soon. Is 30 months soon? I guess that depends on your perspective. A 20 year old would see 30 months as forever ( ~10% of her life). An 80 year old may see 30 months as “tomorrow” (about 3% of one’s life). As Einstein discovered, “it’s all relative”.

So I work. To stay focused, I do not plan vacations. I am focused on how to solve today’s problem, how to advance the “product”. I am a software engineer; every day is different. For those who do not know, I peer into a monitor for long hours and bang on a keyboard and mouse. Booooring. Right? But no. Actually, like most software guys, I am problem solving. Focused on the interconnected pieces of a puzzle I am building. That puzzle and its solution is mostly in my mind with some piece of the solution defined in the structures I’ve hammered out on the keyboard. Mostly the constructs, the great scheme, is etherial; pure creation. It is like playing GOD with ones and zeroes. (religious nuts: that was a dig…)

I will probably never truely unplug. Retirement is not a “getting away from” (Dodge??), but a re-discovery. What really matters to you? Once retired, can you ask that of yourself? What really matters? To You?

Me? I have some inkling. I have long and short term unrealized goals and some future plans. Mostly I will be open to life’s random walk. The goal is not getting from here to there, it is the journey. But most important of all is to have a direction.

So much to discover, to do, to be, still to become! Define yourself by your J. O. B. ?

That’s not me.

Ron