h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I meant the tree dream...

Thanks! I wish there really were such a tree, though I would fear that someone would want to cut it down for profit.

Hope you are enjoying retirement paul. Have you had your fill of people
asking "what do you do with your time" yet?
It seems to be the first thing people ask me when we meet.

I was a little surprised at being asked, but it seems like some sort of initiation rite. People who've been retired a while try to help me with the transition. People who haven't retired yet seem a little jealous. Maybe some of them want to hear that's miserable and bored, so they'll feel better about still having to work.

But the truth is that I worked because I had to. Every day I think of new things to do. A little of the pesky little details of daily life are still very much present. Laundry, dishwashing, food preparation, shopping, exercise routine, car service, etc. It never ends, and it never will end. There are some things I can't retire from.

Fifteen years as a child; forty three years at work; seventeen years lazing about in retirement.......being a child was best; nearly a child again now, tee hee!
Work is a bad thing!

Work is not bad if you love it a lot. It's not bad if unemployment is worse. It is bad if it ruins your health.

if you enjoy the work that you do, then it's a paid hobby. If you hate the work that you do, then it's a task and pay is the sweetener

Row faster, galley slaves, row faster!

[Cracks whip]

Let your growth be like that of a bonsai tree, whose ambition is stunted by pruning, for all of its long long life.
Try to be so small that nobody knows you are there.

I have often felt that that was already the case, Frank.

Just stating a case against the celebrity and fame seekers.
Let your small successes be you own secret.Self promotion, imported from America it seems, is so un-English.
CVs, packs of blatent lies written in an attempt to fool some gullable prospective employer; does anybody ever read them, let alone believe them?
No wonder nobody ever gets a job anymore.

But 9 of every 10 that want a job have it. Many of the jobs may stink, but the sting of having a rotten job is softened by the fact that you get paid for it. If you're doing a job you hate, and you aren't getting paid, something is wrong.

The happiest people are those for whom there is such abundance that there is no need to work. Yes these people will choose to do things of their own volition, but they have choices that the less fortunate never get.
There's a dream for you..... to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth....rich! rich! rich!

I WISH for little and I get "nothing"..I WISH for "nothing" and it comes true

They say! money is the root of all evil. Trust me to be a good guy and be skint!!


I'm content, but not happy!.
But I'm content knowing that I will find happiness one day,
and that makes me happy and content.

i have been looking forward to retirement since i started school - but now that its only two to seven years away i'm not so sure any more

but then i'm thinking i might as well take retirement as soon as possible in order to get some of it while i'm still alive

it's a question of balance - like almost everything else

My preferred occupation would be that of a lotus eater.
I am fortunate never to have been cursed by ambition.
Ambitious people never really acheive all they aim for.
They always want more.

Happiness lies in always wanting less.

All I want more of is life. Bring it on!

I had ambition, but not the sense of drive that would have made it happen. My sense of drive is oriented toward getting exhaustive coverage of everything I want or need. Quilts? I have to have at least nine. The fun is in acquiring things. After I have them, I refocus. It's lucky that I rarely want anything too big to carry or store.

i learned to live with the fact that i was in my fourties - but it didn't stop there

oh well, better than the alternative

I want to learn how to live, at the moment I'm just existing

You seem to do more than exist, prof. Right now you seem very much alive. Any more so and you could be dangerous.