Ernie Zelinski - The Joy of Not Working

This book was a completely random find from the community bookshelf near my place. When I saw it I thought: this is the book I tried in vain to find when I quit my job two years ago! 

Back then I did a brief literature review and found that most retirement books are geared at the over-60 crowd and are filled with pat advice about taking care of health and spending time with grandchildren. There were a couple of rarly retirement books but those are dreadfully self-congratulatory, with a strong pecuniary bent: the 4% rule and so on. 

What I needed - and what The Joy of Not Working delivers - is some guidance through the process of moving on from work, building a life outside of work.

I'll start with the bad bits. This book was first published 1997, and it shows. Ernie Zelinski's writing is conversational, but the boomer jokes are kinda cringe, and yeah he does go into blasting-his-own-horn territory at points, though not as irritating as Tim Ferriss, say. 

Also, not all of the book is useful. There are some chapters about why you should quit your job and how work can kill you. I think we all know these things by now - and of course it's gotten worse in the past 26 years! There is a chapter about finances which is full of vague nothings - a write-off.

Put all of that aside, however, and you can get to the meat of the book, which is very sensible and practical advice for building your post-/extra-work life. I didn't realise it until I read this book, but having a rich and fulfilling leisure life isn't too different from having a good career. It doesn't just happen to people. You have to put effort into it. 

The chapters "Somebody is Boring Me; I Think It's Me" and "Lighting Your Own Fire" are particularly interesting for me, because the main struggle after semi-retiring is combating boredom. This is entirely distinct from having nothing to do. I am a master of keeping busy while being completely bored with what I'm doing. 

Zelinski's formula for post-retirement boredom (and indeed life) goes: do what's difficult and uncomfortable, and life becomes easy. (The reverse is also true: when you do what's easy and comfortable, life is difficult. Or at least angsty.) When you don't have a career it's rather easy to give in to your moods and whims of the day. But "ugh, I don't really feel like doing XYZ" is actually a good reason to do XYZ. 

Another insight is that you actually need a very wide range of interests and goals to keep you interested in life. (Unless you quit your job to pursue just one major, all-consuming passion. Which, let's be honest, isn't most people!)

Zelinski provides this "Get-a-Life Tree" as a brainstorming exercise for such projects. The tree branches into 4 categories: Activities that turn me on now, Activities that turned me on in the past, Activities that will get me physically fit, New activities I have thought of doing. As you fill out the branches some interests will splinter off into other things. For my part, here's what I came up with so far:

• Current interests: drawing, writing, birdwatching, reading, going to McCafe on weekday afternoons, philosophical conversations, travelling around Singapore, cycle trip overseas, camping trips, pet things, meetups/making new friends
• Past interests: hiking, sewing, food delivery, long bike rides, food rescue, dog grooming, dog walking, beach, cooking, art galleries, museums, dancing, kayaking
• New interests: odd jobs, attend courses (YTT, art, animal-related), Bishan ducks, animal portraits, gambling, gaming, house swap, self study, write a newsletter, write a book, teach, run a B&B
• Physically fit: yoga, yoga "retreat" (a week or fortnight of consecutive yoga), running, swimming, HPB classes, walks, cycling

The idea is to cycle through these activities, sometimes trying new ones, sometimes revisiting old loves, so that things don't stagnate. Also your interests need to be revisited and refreshed every few months as you achieve your leisure goals.

There's an important chapter "Unemployed: The True Test of Who You Really Are" which helps one to move on from work. Jobs satisfy three of our biggest needs - structure, purpose, and community - and it is up to us to satisfy each of these outside of work if we are to have happy retirements. 

There's also a small discussion on nostalgia for the good old days when you had an awesome job. I find myself disturbingly prone to this. Zelinski advises correcting such thinking by listing out 20 things you DIDN'T like about your old job, from your coworker's bad breath to toxic positivity on Slack (both examples autobiographical). 

He also notes that people with low self-esteem tend to be high achievers at work and therefore identify strongly with their jobs. That's me...