To suddenly not want to work anymore?

[MasterGland]

I want to sit at home with my cats and read books. Perhaps bake occasionally, play board games with my son. Weed the garden.
I have realised that I can easily fill my days with these things. They make me happy. I am really struggling with motivation at work. I used to be quite career oriented, but now I keep calculating the minimum I need to retire, and how I might do it as soon as possible.
It is a sudden change for me, and not sure if it is related to the current lockdowns... but have not directly been affected by them really as worked straight through both. Anyone else had a sudden change of heart about the pursuit of endless work?

Can you look into part time? I can tell you now that all the free time does get a bit 'old' and can effect your mental health and self esteem (plus, income to actually do anything!) I'd look into part time if possible and then work your way down from that if that works out.

My dad did this and retired early at around 50. I am so glad that he did, especially because he was diagnosed with Parkinsons at around 60 as it has progressed it has become clear to us all that he would not have had the retirement he hoped for had he left it until 65 to retire. As it is, he had ten really wonderful years where he spent time with family, travelled a lot for holidays with us, and generally relaxed and took it easy.

You never know what the future holds. Do what you feel called to do NOW, don't put it off unless you have to.

YANBU. The only reason I work is for money.

@Shylo

Yes absolutely ! I could cheerfully call work tomorrow, tell them to stuff their job and make a perfectly happy life for myself at home ..... unfortunately my mortgage provider does not feel the same way lol

Me too! Cannot understand people who say they would still work if they won the lotto.

Oh those lotto winners....shouldn’t be allowed to buy a ticket if you feel that way. Grr.

With that said, I made a career change in my mid-thirties and now work part time in a field that gives me enormous satisfaction and pleasure. I wonder if this is something you may want to consider. Also, even if you do want to stay in the same field, working part-time can really help to improve your work-life balance and general wellbeing!

@ravenmum

Teaching is a crummy job as you get older - I have met very few teachers who have happily continued until normal retirement age. Massively repetitious - a constant stream of new pupils you have to give the same lessons to, decade after decade. Spending every day getting on stage and doing the same old tricks to entertain an audience of hecklers and people who don't want to be there. Even if you have the strength of will to keep up the quality and come up with new ideas, it's pretty relentless.

Really? I've known a lot of people leave due to the strain on mental health and gone into other jobs such as accountancy and banking instead...

Maybe you live in a chilled little village with 5 pupils? In a normal school you can't just repeat lessons, and you have to cater every one of your 6 lessons a day to all 30 pupils with intro, main, plenary, mark every single piece on and actually be 'on' the entire time they're in the room. No coffee breaks.
Ugh, yeah. No thanks.

No, YANBU. It's OK if you are not a massively ambitious person.

I worked in a really stressful, full on job until I was 36. I worked 6-days a week, long hours and overseas. As a result of our efforts we now have no mortgage to pay. After gruelling fertility treatment for 5 years I then went to be a SAHM for 13 years. That scuppered my career but its Ok because I am not ambitious any more. I like to be kept interested, but I have no goals to move up any ladder. I enjoy my p/t job and it gives me a bit of spare cash, but I don't want to run the department.

When my eldest goes off to Uni, I will be 60 and I will be ready to slow it down and take up gold and other hobbies. Until then I have a job to do with my DC and I want to enjoy my time with them. Last night my 11-year old DS lay on the sofa with his head on my shoulder and we watched TV and had cuddles. That is what I care about, not making some greedy shareholders richer who are sitting there as we speak working out ways to let people go so they can maintain their profits. I know because I used to be in on those meetings.

@Lelophants I think you may have misread my comment as suggesting that teaching is a breeze? 😂

Oh god me too . I was due to retire in March from policing, but due to pension being up in the air until April 2022 , it now looks like I’m working till then , and then finding another much less stressful job with a much smaller commute. I can’t wait. I’ve done 14 years of 200 mile a day commuting , done nearly 30 years of response policing , and I’m knackered . My knees hurt, getting up at 4am is getting more and more difficult, and whilst I love the job, and the satisfaction , and the excitement and the camaraderie , I’m sick to death of standing in the pissing rain half the time , wearing a badly made uniform that doesn’t quite dry. And I’m sick of the constant constant criticism . Whatever I do , it’s always wrong , or simultaneously too much and not enough.

So I’m getting out in 15 months. I’m going to have time to ride , walk the dogs , not have a pile of washing always reproaching me . I’m going to buy myself some really nice garden furniture , and actually sit in it. I’ll be able to contemplate going out to a long lunch , instead of worrying that I have to be back by 3, so I can leave by 4 to be at work by 7. I can’t wait.

My dad is over 80 and still does some work because he loves the work he does (kind of artistic). He also loves having structure to his day - he does other things (garden, cats etc.) but his work is in his blood. He'd have kept working if he'd won the lottery for the same reason. Not to take away money from other people :) - what he does is pretty unique anyway.

The main issue I have with work is the powerlessness - even in a senior role, fundamentally you can't ever really control others' behaviour, esp not in the public sector where people basically only ever get sacked for gross negligence or via an official redundancies policy - managers individually have no teeth so for a lazy person there is no motivation to do a good job. And from the junior's perspective, you can work yourself into the ground but if the targets and expectations set by your superiors (over which you have no control) are unrealistic and impossible, you are always going to fail.

Yes this. I worked in the public sector for 38 years before I retired last year and it seems to me junior staff have a lot more responsibility now than when I started, but are paid the same in relative terms. Other people make decisions you have no say in that massively impact your role and it’s no wonder people feel burnt out by their mid 30s.

I am 50 an making the most of enforced retirement, lost my job at start of covid, due to having to care for relative. I am still doing some of the care. However I could very easily go to another company and get taken on again.

I am enjoying being off. My days are full, I really don't know how I had time to go to work. Think DH may have a different view though, I suspect I may have to get back to work next year, I was in the shielding group for a health condition so glad to be away from risk currently.

I have a little income which I can manage with. Covid has really made me evaluate what makes me happy. My job was making me miserable, so not looking forward to going back. I will be having a major chat with dh about this. I would love a change of job I am tentatively looking at courses to re-train in the hope that I can work from home. Not sure if I am clever enough to do it though, and realize that age against me.

I love my job and am in the middle of a degree to become properly qualified in that area. But if I was to say, win the lottery, they wouldn’t see me for dust.

As I said, I love my job. But I could easily not work and just please myself all day!

God no I think so many people feel like this, but don't want to voice it in fear of sounding as though they are being 'lazy'!

I'm in my early 30's and have recently gone part time after having my first child. I'd never go back to full time.

I have a kind of 'side-hustle' which I love and think I could scale up if I had time, leaving time for being with my little girl, gardening and enjoying life.

I dream of jacking in my actual job and doing this but MORTGAGE.

What makes it worse is I work in the charity sector, which everyone seems to believe is some kind of 'calling' and must be a wonderfully satisfying career. It's stressful and I just kind of fell into it.

And actually, as I write this I'm sat in a 3 hour training session via Zoom. This thread has made me even more determined to not have to give up my time to things like this anymore!

@Smallsteps88

My current game is to see how many meetings I can cancel throughout the day.

I have genuinely just done this today

OP, I feel ya. Late 40s here, good job in education (HE not schools, but for the LOVE OF GOD please stop with the fucking teacher bashing), comfortable lifestyle. Used to be hugely career-driven, worked long hours as single parent in the NHS, moved into HE, studied, climbed the ladder, did all the right things.

Now - bored, frustrated, tired, demotivated and desperate to make a change. As is DH (who is a primary teacher and exhausted as well).

I am planning to go part-time from next Sept and have already done some re-training so that I can set up my own business on the side, with the idea that I gradually build that to a point where I can step away from my HE job completely by the time I'm 50 and hopefully semi-retire by 55.

So I won't have much more free time in the near future (in fact I'll probably have even less!) but even just making plans to escape the drudgery of my current role and have more control over my life makes me feel better.

I genuinely cannot wait, even if it means managing on a reduced salary. Quality of life is everything.

A lot of people I have met who retire or don't work to begin with, narrow their opinions and can become very judgemental and seem to lose a grip on what life and different people are like. I remind myself of this to motivate me when I feel I want to give up work!

I am 52 just been made redundant but no chance of retirement ! Got bills to pay and no savings! Love to retire ...... Don’t know whether I can find a job? Help......

I am extremely resentful of all those who were furloughed during covid and did nothing other than paint and bake.

Why @Oblomov20? It is routinely the advice given to people who need to protect their MH to do something creative. Would you rather people suffered or crumbled?

I, absolutely love my job. I have worked throughout, but from home, which has made me realise how much time I used to waste commuting and being in the office for the sake of it. Luckily my employer is really happy with our increased productivity and we will be able to WFH going forwards, beyond COVID and they are not renewing office leases, keeping just one regional hub open for those who prefer not to wfh.

Having said all of that - I would love to give up and retire early. I overpay my mortgage and should be able to retire in about 7 - 10 years. I still need to work so I can throw money at my Gen Z DC who live, study and work in London.

I am lucky in that my professional expertise, built up over many years, has given me a sideline profession that I can do as and when, well into my seventies, which is well paid.

I really enjoy my own company, meeting up with friends for lunch, going for walks on the beach, holidays (pandemic permitting) and would much rather be doing all of that than working, despite having zero problems with my current role.

I stopped working when my youngest was diagnosed with life threatening illness (age 6).

She’s just turned 9 and is in remission and I absolutely do not want to spend any more of my life at work with my child in after school/breakfast club etc.

Luckily, I already outright own our house (thanks to an inheritance) so that takes the pressure off. Might look for something extremely part time when she gets to secondary school, depending on what happens next with her health.

My two degrees and vaguely glam career are largely worthless to me now. Couldn’t be happier about it, although it wasn’t something I would’ve expected! I thought I wanted to use my brain, but it turns out, I just want to follow my heart.

I'm 40's. I'd like to have a breather from working. DCs still at school so I would have them for company but also time to myself, no stressing about homeschooling (if needed) as would have time for it, more time to cook & potter. Lockdown makes me want to curl up and feel safe at home but I always have work hanging over me. I work p/t but now its home based it feels ever present and on my days off I feel like I should be getting on top of things then on my working days I don't feel productive enough and distracted by being at home. I would like to be furloughed for a month (yes I know that AIBU and do absolutely feel for people with insecure jobs through no fault of their own). I'm really looking forward to cocooning with my family at home over Christmas and no work.

My aunt retired last year in her early 50's. She is finding this year much harder to cope with as she can't take numerous holidays abroad & now shops are closed. When I talk to her I can't imagine not working again as ultimately on a good day it makes me feel productive and gives shape to my week & I hope my DC see value in what I do. Also have friends who were much more ambitious than me, some in very senior positions now and I know I have the potential to do more and as my DC get older I may want more challenge in my life through work.

This year has shaken us all up and made us all evaluate our priorities in life.

@Lelophants

Can you look into part time? I can tell you now that all the free time does get a bit 'old' and can effect your mental health and self esteem (plus, income to actually do anything!) I'd look into part time if possible and then work your way down from that if that works out.

My self esteem is better now than when I was working. I no longer have that constant anxiety that I wasn’t up to the job.

Tenterden “Why @Oblomov20? It is routinely the advice given to people who need to protect their MH to do something creative. Would you rather people suffered or crumbled?”

I thought she meant she’d like to be furloughed and do fun stuff. As would I.

I started to feel like that when I hit 55, lucky for me I was in a final salary pension so with the mortgage paid both kids nearly sorted I left my place of work after 22 years, I now top up my pension by delivering parcels for Amazon, its great I wear shorts and t shirts instead of a suit and laptop, I have not set the alarm for 2 years am not bored at all it did take about 6-8 months to adjust to the new life style but with Amazon as its a Flex program even if we have a job to do I can cancel up to an hour before no pressure at all I am not retired I just had a revaluation of my life.