Or maybe I never even thought about it before.
But now that I think back, I did experience this.
We all know that retiring early is not normal.
And it's ingrained in us that we need to work til we are old. So much so that this expectation becomes the norm.
The idea is so normal, that even I, myself, have it ingrained in me.
And the thing is... when I left my job. I did feel guilty being unemployed and not being "productive" in the traditional sense.
When I was young, my parents told me, finish your homework, then you can go and play.
When I'm older... the Government tells us to finish our homework only at 65 years old. Then we can play.
It's implied, even though, by right, we can play anytime we want. However, because we are so used to having someone else set dates and goals for us since young, we naturally just work until the next benchmark date.
It's like primary school, then secondary school, then tertiary education, then work, then get married, buy HDB, then have kids, then retire at 65.
This is the "right" way to play the game. And if I missed out any of the steps. Means I didn't follow the right path.
So when I retired early. I did feel guilty. Now that I think back, I think the feeling is of guilt.
I didn't recognize the feeling when I was younger as I was living through it.
The idea that I was playing before I finished my homework. Cos my homework ends at 65 years old.
And I think this happens cos since young, we just follow the path. At least in SG. I'm not sure about other countries and the expectations parents/society has on kids overseas. But at least in SG, I was brought up to follow the path, and when I didn't follow the path, I felt bad about it.
This happened when I was in school also.
I was quite good at studies. I could score pretty decently with not much study. But I also didn't want to put in more effort to get even better scores.
But technically, I already finished my homework. I could do more, but I didn't want to. But since everyone else was still studying or putting in more effort, I would feel bad about it.
When I sat for my accounting A levels, it was 3 hours per paper. There were 2 papers, so it's 3 hours + 3 hours. For both of the papers, I finished my paper in 1 hour. Leaving me with 2 hours to do nothing. I was looking around doubting myself. I was thinking, what's wrong, did I miss out a whole bulk of the paper? Did I forget something? Did I misunderstand the question.
And I think that's how we look at the world. We always compare ourselves against others. That's the only way to have a reasonable benchmark. Else there's no such thing. There's no such thing as normal.
If I was the only person on Earth. There's no benchmark. There's no right way or wrong way.
But because there's other people around us, we look around and have a perception of what's considered average of the people around us.
And when I left my job, my average around me were still working. And I felt like I was doing something wrong. And I think for other people, they might feel that they are doing something wrong also. To be playing when they "should" be working. You're still supposed to be doing your homework at 35 years old, 45, 55, etc... It's not easy looking around and I was doing something different from others. It takes a lot of self confidence.
If you're someone like me, if you're young and retired and you're feeling a lack of confidence. Then I'd like to encourage you to have faith in yourself. Even if you're 45, 50, 55... It's easy to have no confidence as well, cos many people are still working, when maybe in your mind you are wondering why everyone is still working when by right, you already have enough money to live frugally and take life easy already.
I'd like to say, there's absolutely nothing wrong with playing or enjoying yourself.
There's no homework to finish. You don't need to wait for your "parent" or Government to tell you that you have finished your homework and are now allowed to play.
This is your life. You can go and play anytime you want. You can do your homework anytime you want. You can work, stop, rest, play, then go back to work again, or do anything.
There's really no right or wrong way to do this.
So don't need to feel bad about it, or guilty like how I felt. If you, personally, feel that you have finished your homework, then by all means, go and enjoy your play, and don't look back.
You deserve to play early cos you finished your homework earlier than everyone else.
<<PREVIOUS POST // NEXT POST>>
Did you like this post? If so, could you "blanjah" me 1/4 cup of my morning coffee pls.
You may also consider subscribing to receive the articles in your email, link in the column on the right.