Slowing Down
Everything is slowing down, so why aren’t I? Last year the politics was running hot and heavy in the run-up to the election. Joe Biden was on the ropes and it was unclear who would emerge as the Trump-killer. Every day there was excitement about what that idiot Trump had done lately and what his tweets were lying about. The Pandemic alone was a full-time job keeping up with events. We had just started our first lockdown and reports from Europe implied that we were in for all kinds of hardships. We were just starting to postpone trips…that would meant to put off for a little while versus cancelling. I remember when someone said we should push a trip off until 2021. That seemed unimaginable that this would not all end within six months. On the work front I was juggling several expert witnesses cases, preparing for my first course at University of San Diego in the Fall and still acting as CEO of my little hydrogen company. I had a list of projects around the property as long as my arm and was into employing Handy Brad for one thing after another. I felt like my agenda was full and many of the things were not even as anticipated, but I was OK with the juggling. In many ways, being a manager on Wall Street was nothing more than trying to keep a schedule and a plan while juggling all the unanticipated crap that his the plate every day. But that was last year. This year is very different.
All of the pieces are still there just as they were last year. I am twenty-five pounds lighter, but otherwise I am more or less the same. I haven’t had so much as a sniffle and I haven’t injured myself in any way other than a leg cramp or a mildly sore back or two. I have my COVID vaccinations and am more interested in all the things I was interested in last year. Over that year I wrote two books totaling over six hundred pages and I wrote about 400 daily blog stories which had over 500,000 words or the equivalent of another five books. I haven’t done the parsing, but I suspect three quarters of those stories were about the Pandemic or our miserable political situation. I am still working one expert witness case that seems to have an endless weekly arbitration series for which my testimony is most often required (it has no indication that it will come to an end any time soon). There have been some inquiries for new cases, but the litigation scene is slower than usual and nothing new is on the plate yet this year. The University of San Diego has asked me to teach the same course again this Fall and has indicated interest in expanding my involvement in their teaching program, but the academic cycle is very slow to say the least, so I doubt that anything new will materialize before 2022 (Whoops…literally while writing this I checked my email and see that they are asking me to consider a guest lecture in April and to teach a course in global business ethics, probably in the Fall…we’ll see). I am still the CEO of that little hydrogen company, but it takes up very little time, but of course that could change at any time.
When I moved out here last year it was with the intention of slowing down and easing into retirement. I know that retirement just barely exists any more despite the ads from all the insurance and investment companies that love to talk about it as an enticing stage of later life. Well, I’ll bet that 80+% of the folks that get themselves into retirement find the program less enticing than it was promised to them to be. I’ve heard from many friends that are retired that I need to embrace retirement and stop trying to do so much. They think I will be happier if I learn to enjoy my free time. But here’s the thing I pretty much know after a year of test driving this whole retirement thing…I’m happier if I have things to keep me busy that I find meaningful. I have always had lots of hobbies and I have expanded my hobbies about as much as I believe I can and yet I still have too much free time for my taste. I want to teach more (especially in topics like ethics and policy), I want to do more expert witness work (of almost any type since I find that representing claimants or defendants can be equally gratifying), I want to advise more companies in formation (preferably as a board member). What I am less interested in doing is being on large company boards or really running a company (at least not for much longer), teaching about topics which are getting dated or for which my experience may not be timely, or being an expert witness on cases that I don’t believe have much merit.
I also want to have household projects, but I prefer that they be the creative type as opposed to just fixing that which is broken (like my damn deck). I just ordered a basalt rock column (5’ high x 15” in diameter) that will be turned into a pond less fountain (meaning it will have an underground reservoir and pump). I don’t even mind projects like the replacement of my front door and the painting of my other doors and gate since I’ve been able to add my new mosaic to adorn the door and I’ve had the ability to pick an entirely new color (Chinese Red) to change the look of the property. I am running a little scared of coming to the end of the line on household projects. It’s been a solid year of projects, so there’s a part of me that should be happy to come to a logical end of the road, at least on must-do projects. But whenever I see the end of the project road, I suddenly remember something else I’ve been considering.
When I started writing this piece this afternoon I was feeling bored and a bit sorry for myself. The rain had slowed me down today, but I see that the weather is warming and looking clear through the end of the month. Already the picture has changed by virtue of that outreach tonight from University of San Diego. Who knows, maybe there is a court case with my name on it coming tomorrow. I certainly hope that some of the funding prospects we have for our hydrogen business pan out and cause us to have to rev things up. As for projects, while the deck the door and the laundry room should be finished by next week, that’s just about when that basalt rock column is likely to land on my driveway and need installation. So tonight I am starting to think that what I thought this afternoon was a need to start understanding how best to accomplish the slowing down program has ended up with me thinking that things were just in a temporary lull and that slowing down is less what’s needed than understanding how to fill lulls. I am beginning to think that my plans for the three road trips I have now planned for April, May and June may end up coming into conflict with work and projects that might surface. I can only hope…I think. That’s the real problem with slowing down, you want it but then you don’t want it and then you want it again.