Joy Isn’t a Retirement Reward

I waited 30 years to learn that

The first sip, before the day starts asking for anything. Photo by the author.

For most of my working life, I kept a list in my head. I never wrote it down, but I added to it constantly. I called it the After List.

I’ll be happy after this project wraps up. After the promotion, after this bill is paid off, after I lose the weight. After things calm down at work, which they never did. After I finally have time.

And at the very bottom, underlined twice: after I retire.

I spent 30 years in education treating joy like a bonus check, something that might show up once I’d suffered long enough to deserve it. Then I retired at 53 and found out the hard way that nobody was holding the check.

The Finish Line Kept Moving

There’s a name for the trap I fell into. Psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar calls it the “arrival fallacy,” the belief that once we reach some big goal, we’ll finally feel happy and settled for good.

The problem is that arriving rarely feels the way we imagined. We get the promotion, enjoy it for a week, and immediately start worrying about the next thing. The finish line keeps moving, as if it had better places to be than waiting around for us.

I did this for decades. Every summer break was going to be when I’d finally…