Accomplishments

One of the issues I struggle with most in my retirement is dealing with my sense of lack of accomplishment, or on the flip side, learning to self-appreciate. I speak of it as "my sense" rather than an actual lack of accomplishments because I still accomplish things just as I did before - small things everyday, larger things every week or month - just without a client or a boss to know and appreciate everything I do.

In fact, I do a lot these days. I do things for my family, my friends, and myself, much more than I ever did before. I assist my parents with business transactions, I babysit (a lot), I throw baby showers for friends, I throw parties for my in-laws, I read and exercise for myself, among other things. I get lots of thanks, and everyone on Facebook knows I'm the world's greatest aunt and sister. It's all very rewarding, in some ways more so than any work I've done or could do. But in one important way, it falls short of the things I used to say when people asked me what I did that day: "filed a brief," "submitted an expert report" or "won a motion." It doesn't feel like an accomplishment. I'm fully aware that taking care of two nephews under three years of age for a full ten-hour day is an accomplishment, even more so when I did it three days in a row. It just didn't feel like one because it didn't involve a great mental challenge, a judge wasn't waiting to read it, millions of dollars weren't hinging on it.

I miss that part of working, and to remedy that, I am working on appreciating more what I do for myself. But the best remedy is to really think about my job as a whole, and then I realize just how little I miss it. Every time I think about the immense amount of unnecessary stress just for a little bit of satisfaction, and all that I missed out on while spending 80 hours per week at the office, I'm happy to be retired. So happy.