Knowing the difference between a black funk and when it is time to retire...

[rayinpenn]

Good question - why don't you?

Because i will quit when the time is right for me.. I guess Im just selfish that way..

 

[Chuckanut]

.

We have a conversation in person and she tells “I am in a funk” and “look what happened to Jill we don’t have forever”. I agree but change from 3 days a week to 4 (until the holidays).

I tell her you are in the catbirds seat and cant lose one way or another. I further tell her you are financially set - 2 years away from early SS.

I would send her this cartoon which is somewhat famous in this site (at least I think it should be famous):

 

[Bestwifeever]

Not me. It was not such a touchy-feely decision in my case.

I knew my retirement date almost immediately; it was the first day that I would qualify for retirement. I decided that come h*ll or high water, I was going to be ready to retire on that date because I owed it to myself. I was absolutely, fanatically determined, and I made it happen. No need for an emotional breakdown or mood assessment.

Call that "over simplification" if you wish, but that is how I do things. When things happen (like Katrina), I just double down and do what I need to do.

I sort of get why people who could retire don't, but it is interesting that after getting all one's retirement ducks in a row (the rational part of retirement planning), so many people just stop at the edge at that point, and wait for a whim or a black funk or some else's hardship or whatever to have to spook them into jumping off. Like having all your college credits done toward graduation and your cap and gown in a box on your bed and then deciding to get another major. The real world of your future is waiting out there and every day you don't go to meet it, the more it will change without you.

 

[W2R]

How can anyone be anything BUT rational about retiring? You listed a number of variables, and there were many others. And while I was nervous about it, I had analyzed everything that could be analyzed and came to what I think was highly rational decision to go. I was also nervous before I got married, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to do it. Major changes are pretty much always scary, but you do them anyway. I wish I could have analyzed being married as rationally as I did retiring, but sex was not one of the variables in retirement.

+1, great post!

If I had retired based only on touchy-feelie aspects like my emotions du jour, like my very compelling desire to get away from the ruins of New Orleans after Katrina, or like sex, I would have retired years before I did.

But that would have been sheer lunacy, in my case, because I was not really financially ready for it at that point. There was just a lot of wishful thinking going on in my mind, back then. We have rational minds, so might as well use those capabilities to help when making important decisions like when to retire.

 

[Mdlerth]

Geronimo!

I sort of get why people who could retire don't, but it is interesting that after getting all one's retirement ducks in a row (the rational part of retirement planning), so many people just stop at the edge at that point, and wait for a whim or a black funk or some else's hardship or whatever to have to spook them into jumping off. Like having all your college credits done toward graduation and your cap and gown in a box on your bed and then deciding to get another major. The real world of your future is waiting out there and every day you don't go to meet it, the more it will change without you.

Perhaps a closer analogy would be skydiving. You've completed the safety course, memorized the procedures, donned your helmet and cinched up your parachute. Everything you can prepare for you have prepared.

But now you're in the plane, standing at the door, the instructor is behind you, the wind is whipping past, and it sure looks like a long way down. -Gulp!-

 

[rayinpenn]

Perhaps a closer analogy would be skydiving. You've completed the safety course, memorized the procedures, donned your helmet and cinched up your parachute. Everything you can prepare for you have prepared.

But now you're in the plane, standing at the door, the instructor is behind you, the wind is whipping past, and it sure looks like a long way down. -Gulp!-

Well said. It is indeed a parachute jump for some, yet for others it is escaping the torture room...

 

[brett]

I believe that the worst possible time to make an important decision is when you are in a black funk.

You need to wait until your head is clear, then make the right decision for you based upon your heart, your finances, and what you want to do with your remaining time.

We came very close to making a real estate decision based on a black funk. It would have been the absolute wrong decision. Fortunately we happened to meet the husband of my wife's friend who made some comments that woke us up from our funk and changed our decision process.

 

[GravitySucks]

You know some times it's not a black funk, some times it could be a sign from the universe. seriously.



My story is not too, too different, lol except I'm not in the 6 figure club. Anyhoo, for most of my life I was a Principle investigator (fancy title for Chemist) with a familiar mega chemistry company located in Wilmington De.

Well as with many companies the atmosphere changed. we went from doing research to simply trying to make the stock holders happy (which is an animal that keeps wanting to be fed more and more). the job changed totally and I was supremely unhappy. I will say I loved many of my coworkers, most of us were there in the same group for 20, 25, 30 years. we knew each others personal lives and really were a great group. I was really prepared to stick it out.



Then from 2013 to 2015. I lost my husband, my little brother and my best friend. Two to cancer, one to a heart attach. ALL 55 AND UNDER. Oy Vey talk about wake up call. Even with the lousy,lousy severance package they offered, when the time came I jumped ship.



life has a funny way of letting you know real quick what is important and what is not.

+1