One thing about retirement I hadn’t expected was how quickly I slowed down. For years I never slept past 5:30 and even between 4-5:30 was a normal wake-up time. I thought I was just like this. When I retired, I immediately began to sleep until 6:30 or 7. Secondly and by far the greatest slowdown was the disappearance of the stress of the emotional effort needed to maintain a professional relationship with so many people. This was such a drain on my emotional energy which I had just grown accustomed to. There were literally hundreds of individuals I had to keep track of and form productive relationships with. Students, deans, collogues, committee members, administrators, etc. The last great slowdown was how many daily deadlines I abided by. Class times, meeting times, eating times, leaving times, arriving times, all kinds of times I had to schedule to meet. The first thing to go in retirement was times and days. I rarely know either. Every day is wide open for one thing, what would I enjoy doing today. Retirement is rewarding in so many more ways I had never considered, the greatest slowdown on earth.
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