Re: [Silk] Tryst with retirement

[Ingrid via Silklist]

On 14 Jun 2026, at 10:32 AM, Udhay Shankar N via Silklist <silklist@lists.digeratus.in> wrote:  On Sun, Jun 14, 2026 at 9:04 AM Deepak Misra via Silklist <silklist@lists.digeratus.in> wrote: I "retired" almost half  a decade back, but prefer to refer to myself as unemployed. I imagine (most probably wrongly) that I will get sympathy when people hear this but the bigger point is that internally the word retirement has a finality about it tends to influence your thinking internally. What does retirement mean anyway? As I said in the earlier thread, my definition of retirement is to do the stuff I've always done, without stressing over getting paid for it. By that definition, I've been retired for several years. This does require that your daily needs can be met (if required) through other means, such as income from investments. One interesting learning is that NOT caring too much about getting paid gives you the ability to say no to assignments which will stress you in other ways - starting with the ability to recognize such assignments. Udhay -- Silklist mailing list Silklist@lists.digeratus.in https://mailman.panix.com/listinfo.cgi/silklist I retired i.e. no longer do any work for money, three years ago after a career that spanned the private sector, the non profit sector, and the academy.  The greatest boon of retirement for me is having absolute control over my own time. It was only after I retired that I realised that we lose control over our time at birth and almost never recover it.  I continue to serve on a number of nonprofit boards, teach in a couple of programmes for nonprofit leaders, write on the sector, and am currently writing a book telling the stories of some of India’s most impactful nonprofit organisations. These engagements permit me to continue to stay in touch with, and have some influence on, the sector’s evolution. I’m able to fully indulge my love of live music across genres, to travel at a more leisurely pace, to support my fiercely independent 86 year old Mum’s limited needs, and to finally spend time with my husband of 37 years, a practice we learned during the pandemic. The joys of being able to choose how, with whom, when, and why one spends one’s time are, to me, unbounded.

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