A few months ago I made a post called "8 months in and struggling." This is an update in case it's helpful to those making the transition.
I'm now coming up on 16 months post-employment, and I'm relieved to say "it gets better." I think there are a couple reasons for this. First, part of it has just been getting the hang of all the free time and virtually no external demands for the first time since childhood. I got my first paper route when I was 9, my first restaurant job at 12, and--other than a couple years in middle school--I have worked for 45 years straight. Forty-five years! That's a big habit.
So it turns out autonomy really isn't a skill I've developed, which has me going from "expert" to "rookie" for the first time in a long while. No wonder I felt disoriented in the first few weeks & months.
Related to that is the scripting that came from our culture (first from family, then generally through the consequences of the Standard American Script). For the first time in my life I've been able to look objectively at just how deeply rooted my programming is around the idea of work & consumption as being the primary ways to gain respect/approval from other people. I'm not one of the blessed who went their own way from the beginning, as I sought belonging due to the difficulties of my early life. My father instilled the idea of being a hard working, respectable person as a way to earn respect from others, and marketing (as we all know) reinforced that by telling me that money would lead to things that would lead to...keeping up with the Joneses. Hence, belonging.
Somehow there was a voice in me that knew all this was wrong and once I happened upon the FI community I understood a way out. And I'm extremely grateful for that. Jumping off the ledge was hard for me for many reasons, including being identified with my career.
But now I see that I can learn a new way of being, and that with patience it may be something I can master. I'm still working on this and trying to find what I really, truly enjoy in life post-work. It's challenging to unravel the knots that I inherited from the Story of our Times, but the space I have now seems to be making that possible.
I'm now coming up on 16 months post-employment, and I'm relieved to say "it gets better." I think there are a couple reasons for this. First, part of it has just been getting the hang of all the free time and virtually no external demands for the first time since childhood. I got my first paper route when I was 9, my first restaurant job at 12, and--other than a couple years in middle school--I have worked for 45 years straight. Forty-five years! That's a big habit.
So it turns out autonomy really isn't a skill I've developed, which has me going from "expert" to "rookie" for the first time in a long while. No wonder I felt disoriented in the first few weeks & months.
Related to that is the scripting that came from our culture (first from family, then generally through the consequences of the Standard American Script). For the first time in my life I've been able to look objectively at just how deeply rooted my programming is around the idea of work & consumption as being the primary ways to gain respect/approval from other people. I'm not one of the blessed who went their own way from the beginning, as I sought belonging due to the difficulties of my early life. My father instilled the idea of being a hard working, respectable person as a way to earn respect from others, and marketing (as we all know) reinforced that by telling me that money would lead to things that would lead to...keeping up with the Joneses. Hence, belonging.
Somehow there was a voice in me that knew all this was wrong and once I happened upon the FI community I understood a way out. And I'm extremely grateful for that. Jumping off the ledge was hard for me for many reasons, including being identified with my career.
But now I see that I can learn a new way of being, and that with patience it may be something I can master. I'm still working on this and trying to find what I really, truly enjoy in life post-work. It's challenging to unravel the knots that I inherited from the Story of our Times, but the space I have now seems to be making that possible.
