I'm "wishing my life away", apparently...

I'll be retiring soon.  Not soon enough, obviously, but I'm far closer to the end of my working life than the beginning.

I have plans, dreams, 'bucket lists', whatever, and I think about these regularly, and often articulate what I think.

This has led to me being accused several times of 'wishing my life away', a charge which I fully reject.

To be fair, this is a concept with some immediate attraction, and not a little mileage.  Too many people spend their lives in humdrum jobs, and worse.  They spend their working hours waiting for the end of the shift, the weekend, the holiday.  They live their entire careers hating what they do for half of their waking lives (sans holidays & weekends), waiting for a few short hours of relief.  That's not living, that's a life wasted. Agreed.

But to leave the discussion there is short-sighted in the extreme.  And it fails to take into account any number of other factors.

Firstly, not everyone who looks to a brighter future despises the present.  Would I like to be on a beach on a Greek island, sipping cold beer?  Of course!  Would that be better than working?  Why, yes!  I don't think I'm the only person to think that, and I'm sure it doesn't automatically make me someone who despises every minute of his working life.  If your job is better than sipping beer on a beach then you're extremely lucky.  If it isn't, then not looking forward to the latter is not a negative character trait. If you're doing a job less pleasant than Hellenistic quaffing, but you're not looking forward to retirement, then there's something wrong with you, not me.

Secondly, I like thinking.  Fair enough, it's clearly not everyone's cup of tea, but it's right down my street, and this is usually not a character trait which is criticised.  Prefer heavy literature to airport paperback trash?  That's great.  Prefer QI to Coronation Street?  Fantastic!  Prefer Pink Floyd to One Direction?  Nice one!  Thinking, generally speaking, is applauded as being better than not thinking.  Thinking things through is better than doing things off the cuff.  Being 'thoughtless' is a criticism, 'thoughtful' a compliment.  If I think about my future as much as my past and present, I shouldn't be criticised for it.

Thirdly, isn't this something we all do?  Stop and think for a moment about all of the great times of your life.  Holidays, concerts, nights out with friends, whatever.  A large number of these will involve at least an element, if not a great deal, of looking forward.  There might be the odd person who books tickets to an event, then doesn't think about it until the evening of said event, and only enjoys the occasion itself.  But these people are surely just that.  Odd.

Fourthly, isn't thinking about the future the core of the self-awareness which separates us from animals?  And isn't a lack of this self-awareness in humans usually thought of as a kind of mental and/or social defect?  If you're not sure what this means, just google 'human self-awareness'.

And finally, there's a rather overly-simplistic idea that thinking about something nice in the future precludes a person from enjoying the present; an idea which I don't feel stands up to close examination.  I started to consider my retirement in real detail around 20 months ago.  In the time since then I've enjoyed nights out, holidays, friendships, concerts, and all manner of fun.  Indeed, I've probably enjoyed the last 20 months more than the preceding 20.  And, despite 'retiring' requiring giving up work, there are large parts of my job which I still love, and which I will certainly miss once gone.

But yes, I'm very much looking forward to retiring.  And yes, I'll continue to plan, and weigh up my options.  And yes, I'll continue to articulate my thoughts about this, just as I do about pretty much everything else. *

But as I sit here with a glass of beer in my hand, watching an old episode of Sherlock, and enjoying watching Mr. Biscuits (the hamster) scurry across the living room in her hamster ball (yes, Mr. Biscuits is a she), I'll reject any accusation that dreaming about the future prevents me from enjoying the now.  For the simple reason that it's clearly untrue.

And if you're that person in a humdrum job, then don't stop dreaming about the future.  Dreaming ("wishing your life away, apparently) isn't your problem.  The job is.

So the next time you hear someone use the phrase 'wishing your life away', pity the poor, unimaginative soul making the accusation, rather than the accused.

Now, where's my pension calculator spreadsheet...


* It strikes me that, when someone tells me to stop 'wishing my life away' when I'm discussing my retirement, they're actually just fed up with hearing me go on about it, which is fair enough.  But if that's the case, then surely that's how the criticism should be levelled.  If someone lazily chooses to wrap up their disinterest in a second rate cliché, then it's their own lookout for leaving themselves open to the critique in this blog post.