Joy of retirement

Discover freedom, joy, and reinvention as life shifts from to unhurried living

- Harsh Goenka

Retirement. The word sounds like a pause, doesn't it? A dignified slowing down, a polite stepping away from the boardroom.

But, retirement isn't a full stop. It’s a semicolon. It’s a shift in rhythm, a chance to downshift from the frenzied sprint of deadlines into the gentle hum of living. It isn’t an exit; it’s a gentle reinvention. You may leave the stage, but you'll linger in the wings, whispering unsolicited wisdom from the sidelines.

9 am tasty coffee

The first joy of retirement is deceptively simple: coffee. Not the variety you gulp down between calls, but the kind you sip slowly, while watching the sunlight stretch across the balcony. Imagine waking up at 6 a.m., ready to dive into emails and strategy decks—only to find there are no crises, no red flags. Just silence. The calendar stares back—blank. Initially terrifying. And then... liberating. Without the tyranny of schedules, you begin to notice things: birds arguing over breadcrumbs, your spouse's smirk at the morning headlines, the neighbour's dog holding a loud press conference with the pigeons. You stop measuring time by deals closed or meetings held, and begin tracking it by the ripeness of mangoes or the length of your morning walk. Try identifying cloud shapes one morning. You may even spot one that looks like a boardroom table—and another like your old assistant chasing a deadline. The imagination, long buried under Excel sheets, slowly begins to bloom again.

Joy of being useless