For as long as I can remember work has been my constant companion. When I was 13 years old I started babysitting. My hourly rate was between .50 and .75 cents an hour, boy was I loaded! I even spent one summer as a mother’s helper at a bungalow colony in the Catskills, affectionately known as the Borsht Belt because of the predominately Jewish summer residents.
For the next 40 years or so, I’ve worked in the health care industry, first as a registered nurse when I graduated from nursing school at age 20 then transitioning to the business of healthcare two decades later. I’ve always been a conscientious, customer focused and engaged employee as I truly believed that delighting the customer experience, whether providing exemplary care to my patients or coming from a place of honesty and integrity with my customers. The rewards, personally and professionally have been too numerous to recount. I’ve had a wonderful career.
I’ve always thought I would retire the moment I hit 62, but life has a way of way laying your best laid plans and not for any reasons you might think. I love what I do. I love my customers and I have been very successful. Walking away from a lucrative career is not the easy decision I thought it would be. I have several friends and acquaintances that have made the leap and retired and they are living la Vida! Some of those same friends have assured me that the day will come when I will wake up one morning and just know that this is it, I am ready to retire. I guess I will pay heed to those pearls of wisdom because at the moment the time does not seem right.
For those retirees out there what do you think? Let me know what your experience has been and most of all are you happy with your post work life?
rainbowkinect 