Not the other side where no one truly knows, it’s the other side of building your funds and life. The one that is free from contributing to a 401(k) or IRA, away from working a formal job and the one where your time is no longer dictated by obligation but by your own intention and doing.
There are hundreds of thousands of books published on investing, over 50,000 books on retirement planning alone, but very few on the view from the other side, what life after working is truly like and whether all you did was worth it.
I found a blog with stories from a couple living as nomads but had recently ended. Other blogs and YouTube videos, especially for FIRE, share how they saved or what you should know before you do something different (retire). Instagram posts on downsizing and moving to Hawaii that were obviously fake using AI. And a Business Insider article on an 84-year-old who retired early at 60 that focused on the planning side rather than the other side of living it.
There is no LinkedIn for those on the other side to share what they are doing and what fills their calendar. I did find an Epic Retirement Facebook group where people primarily from the UK, Australia and New Zealand post about approaching retirement while others offer snippet insights from the other side that are helpful but nothing of substance.
Since there isn’t an expansive base of public knowledge with experience on the other side, it becomes obscure, the unknown. The years of accumulated wisdom and accompanying stories are left unsaid. We only experience what our parents did or didn’t do. And even then, we truly may not know.
I never “retired,” never had a retirement party and all the accolades. I just left a job I no longer found rewarding in search of more time. Over the years since that decision, it took time to figure out what time meant.
Time is finite, irreplaceable and a limited resource which highlights its preciousness. I wanted time to do and experience different things. Travel was one of those things. My husband had international trips that I could never coordinate to go with him. In 2019, I was on 25+ planes. The next year increased of our road trips. In 2018, I started updating our 1965 California house with input from a realtor, appraiser and help from several contractors knowing we would sell sometime in the future, unknowingly a mere 3 years away.
Security, as in financial security, was my initial focus since we no longer had dual income and no plan whatsoever. It’s how I learned that life is a series of choices and trade-offs and that focus is required to identify your long-term, overall aims, interests, values and the means to achieve and keep them – being strategic. I wrote about this in October 2024 and it changed the trajectory of our life. My husband retired a year later with the full accolades and fanfare.
Connection is the glue that holds everything together. It’s when you realize that life is rich, beauty is everywhere and every personal connection has meaning. There is more to life and your identity than the work you are paid and rewarded to do. You learn to connect what you now do to other identities, an interior/exterior designer, an investor, a board member, a writer, a traveler, all of which I love to do. You also have to learn how to connect with people outside of those you worked with. Others are better at doing this than some of us.
Reward is the accolades we received while working. It is needed to keep going, to continue doing whatever we find purposeful and by that we create something that matters not only to us but to others. As I adapted to doing something different, it elicited different titles, different people and different rewards. The milestones become clearer, the experiences and people become more meaningful and the rewards showed up in places I never expected. Financial Independence Isn’t the End Point.
It took me four years to create The Cache and to realize I didn’t need to attach a paid consulting/coaching job/role to justify it to myself or anyone else.
The other side is different for everyone and for different reasons. Even though people have been retiring, leaving work and distinguished careers for decades having more resources than we know what to do with, the obscurity of it remains. The other side isn’t where you fade into obscurity, it’s where you step into your own limelight.
I’ve never met Dan but have followed his writing and perspective and look forward to reading his view from the other side. I read the chapter he offers here from his upcoming book. It’s worth your time. Four Million Books and Now One More
What Retirement Actually Feels Like: Why The First Year Matters More Than You Think
Featured Image – On the other side of Las Vegas there is an amazing, obscure state park that most people drive past on the way to Utah unless you know about it, Valley of Fire State Park. Photographer CN Wauters.