2014 was an interesting year for me. The year began with the trailing two weeks of a four week visit to Australia. Then, I spent July and August in France, then took another week off when I returned to take care of my dad. Finally, I took the last two weeks of the year off to be with family. With other short vacation days thrown in, I took nearly 13 weeks off in 2014 (if my math is right, that\u2019s a quarter of a year). Most of that time off came from an award I received several years ago that allows me a one-time eight-week vacation (a sabbatical of sorts), and I also used just about all of the five weeks of regular vacation time that Microsoft gives me.<\/p>\n
I mentioned the above (in much shorter form) on twitter this week. In the discussion, I mentioned that I\u2019ve been at MS for nearly 19+ years, and it\u2019s a once in a career sort of thing, and Geir Gulbrandsen<\/a> asked if I\u2019d do an encore after an another 19 years. I answered that I\u2019d likely be in some stage of retirement by then, and that led to a discussion on what retirement is\u2026and it made me want to dump my thoughts into a form longer than 140 characters.<\/p>\n So here goes.<\/p>\n A lot of twitter folks said things like, \u201cIf you do what you love, do it forever\u201d or, \u201cI\u2019ll never stop working if I enjoy the job\u201d. I agree with these folks. Even in \u201cretirement\u201d, my dad worked for years just to keep from getting bored. I get bored easily too, and I really like my field of work, so why would I even think about retirement (in any form)?<\/p>\n Because I like things other<\/em> than working too. I like to travel (actually, I don\u2019t like the travelling part \u2013 I like being<\/em> in other countries). Spending two months in a foreign country (or a month each in two different countries) isn\u2019t something someone can do often when working a full time job. Or, I may write another book someday \u2013 but I know from past experience that I didn\u2019t like the schedule I had to keep to work full time while writing. I may take a class. I may want to work in a winery. Who knows. All I know is that at some point in my life (and probably within 10 years or so), I\u2019ll want to work much less than I\u2019m working now. Somewhere in the twitter stream, I said (tweeted) this:<\/p>\n For me, “retirement” isn’t a stoppage of work. It’s a choice to work when I want, on what I want, and as frequently as I want.<\/p>\n \u2014 Alan Page (@alanpage) December 31, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n