My relationship to paid work is strongly informed by my social location. As someone who became an adult in the United States as the recession was beginning, there is a generational sense in which I do not trust the economy or the workplace to provide for me. My dad was also in and out of work my whole childhood, so I grew up mistrustful of the system as well. He was well-paid when employed, but also experienced many years of unemployment interspersed between jobs.These experiences make me more motivated to continue to forge my own path in terms of financing my life, since the "safe" job options aren't really all that safe anyway. My gender experiences and class background have also greatly influenced my relationship to paid work. Because I was raised female and upper middle class, I think it's a lot easier for me to consider paid work as potentially optional and than it is for most cisgender men or working class folks.
This combination of cultural expectations and life experiences led me to today's realization, which is that I am semi-retired. Until tonight I referred to this as working part-time. But since I plan to work part-time for as long as possible, and since I'm pretty sure I'll be doing some amount of paid work into my eighties, I realized that I'm actually semi-retired. This feels much more empowering than saying I "work part-time". I'm still working on the financial logistics of this, but I am making progress. I finally managed to pay off my credit card debt last year, and am slowly heading toward financial stability. Last year I learned how to live for thousands of dollars less and with a much better quality of life than the year before in the same city. Sharing housing, internet, transportation and food costs in a community was a significant factor, as was my semi-retirement. I'm curious to see how 2013 will fit unfold in terms of work.
Oy vey, what an alter kaker!
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm fully retired by this standard!
I gotta go get the Early Bird special.
I think you're not retired at all--you're still looking for a calling. So you're not semi-retired, you're "hangin' loose."
Big difference.
I'm still semi-retired, and have been almost the entire 10 years since this original blog post. And, I'm still trying to figure out how to do so while also being financially stable. I had it figured out briefly 10 years ago as a single person, in the 2013 economy. But as a parent with 2 kids in the inflation and pandemic economy of 2023, it's pretty daunting out there. And, I know that my work-to-life ratio does not involve 40 hours per week of "productivity".
ReplyDeleteI'm in the process of starting a small business, which is really scary in many ways, and also exciting to try to further crack this money code from outside the "full time worker" structure. There's so much to learn and create and cultivate that it is often overwhelming. And, I know that being independent in these ways is the path for me. So I continue. Hussle-free anti-capitalist entrepreneurship is a path less traveled, and yet I see those who have made it through the wormhole to financial liberation on this path. So I go forth in faith and doubt as I forge my path toward liberation too.