My husband is reading a book about retirement, and it's got me thinking a lot about retirement. Mostly, I'm thinking about how I'm not old enough to retire. But apparently, I am, because I'm married to someone who is the same age, and he's been working at the same company for thirty-five years, and lately, he's been pondering the eventual, inevitable future, peppering our conversation with things like
HROBs (Happiest Retirees on the Block)
and
What are your Core Pursuits?
which are topics that come up in the book he's been reading, What the Happiest Retirees Know: 10 Habits for a Healthy, Secure, and Joyful Life by Wes Moss. In the book Wes Moss did a survey of 2000 retirees and distilled their answers down to a specific formula for what makes an HROB, such as You should be married and have 2.5 kids and live close to 50% of them. Also, make sure you have two to six Close Connections (friends) and 3.6 Core Pursuits (hobbies).
Side note: Your average HROB is in good health and has a lot of money, but Wes sorta glosses over this part.
Meanwhile, my husband has gotten fixated on the hobbies, worrying that because he only has one, woodworking, he needs to up his game and find 2.6 more.
Maybe one is enough, I tell him, pointing out that woodworking is a time-consuming hobby. I mean, he singlehandedly remodeled our kitchen and has a list of orders from friends who'd like him to build something for them (his specialties are bookcases, tables and Little Free Libraries) and anyway, without having read the book, I think Wes would agree that it's not the number of hobbies you have, but that they are enjoyable and interesting and meaningful.
Like, gardening is for me. And reading. And working at the library. But is that a hobby if I'm getting paid? (Side note #2: I don't get paid a living wage, and I just recently learned that over 70% of my co-workers, some of whom work full-time and would NOT call their job at the library a hobby, also do not get paid a living wage.)
And where does writing fit in? It's not a job (very little pay; and regardless, I would never retire from it.) And yet, it's not a hobby, because it's just something I do, like brushing my teeth or breathing. It's how I make sense of the world, or rather, how I make my peace with the senselessness of it. How I work through what puzzles me, like why we don't value our public servants enough to pay them a living wage. Or how I grapple with the reality that my husband is reading books about retirement, when once upon a time
we were just starting out, consumed each moment by the stuff of the future, all of it tomorrow or some day or next year, until suddenly, everything we'd planned for and saved for, the future,
is here. Or, almost here. We're not Rs yet. But we do live on a B, and most of the time, we're H. And for today, that is E. (enough)