The Retirement Newsletter: The Great Academic Lie

Issue Number: -82 — why do I want to retire?

Photograph was taken by the author

Welcome

Welcome to Issue -82 — The Great Academic Lie.

Sorry, this issue will be a little ‘ranty’. (Actually, it turned out to be a lot ranty.)

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend who retired a year ago. My thinking was I would do a follow-up on how things were going — see the previous newsletters:

The Retirement Newsletter: What is it like to be newly retired?

The Retirement Newsletter: Two years to go!

But then they asked me a series of questions that stopped me in my tracks:

“Why are you retiring? You have worked long and hard for your job, been poorly paid and spent years studying. Why throw all that away? You always wanted to do the job; why pack it in? You are one of the few people I know that was enthusiastic about…