A few weeks a go I had a massive and awful telling off at work.  Sometimes, it is clear what needs to be done.  The kind of telling to I got was more of the Wong Kar Wai type – where he keeps asking the actors to repeat the scene until the actors think they don’t know how to act anymore.   

This, my mom’s cancer, my husband’s trip to the A&E，my daughter’s trip to the A&E, they all add up to really want to push me over into the territory of I need a break from work. This is sometimes not real – it is a fantasy, an escapism that makes me think that life is better on the other side of work. I don’t particularly want to find another place to work because the shit is only different in shape, size, smell and place. Plus, my workplace is not toxic, the location risk colleagues are really the best people to work with and there is no mean spirited people in my day to day interactions. My manager + higher ups will walk me through how to handle minefields. Yet corporate life is not a walk in the park because such is the nature of the beast. 

Taking a break might result in a permanent retirement. The concerning thing is that I have seen around those close to me, plus read it that who leave work permanently fall easily  into depression or at best feel unhappy during transition. They don’t feel happier or more relaxed and this could go on for ages. As a worker, one can use work as an excuse for the negative feelings. When there is no excuse, when one discovers life is suffering then there is only religion that can solve it. I am not well prepared to fix it currently. I don’t have a good daily practice.  

LivingaFI updated about retirement post his and his wife’s retirement. It made me wonder if they became depressed when there was nothing in their lives to provide external validation. The freedom in retirement means freedom from comparison, freedom from the need to escape. Not on the way that   freedom traditionally means and feels – I have left something to reach the shores of my dreams. Freedom  becomes like a version of emptiness that is beyond simple appreciation. It becomes full of everything we ever are happy or unhappy about life. That can be extremely overwhelming because there is no longer have distractions to tune out all the everything.  That can be quite terrifying.     

To continue to get a paycheck is not an easy path either. However, it has security – not just from money but also medical coverage,   dental subsidy, insurance and so on – normal everyday things that I take for granted and forgot they exist because I occassionally use them. 

发挥了这么多，还是没有结论。只能高唱，我问天。