Reawakening

I recently entered a new phase of life and thought I would share a bit about the change. I have been running Analog Ethos as a small business in my spare time while I was employed fulltime at a large corporation. In January, I retired from that job.

My career was important to me and I enjoyed it. I got an MBA and worked more than 20 years in the investment industry, business strategy, people management, product management, and recently I was very deep in AI development. I did interesting work with people I liked. Still, it took a lot from me, and the stress was high. I just decided I don't need to keep earning more money, and I want to prioritize different things in my life: my physical and mental health, my family and friendships, time with some aging relatives reaching the end of their lives, being my authentic self, more creative and in control of my daily life. I could keep working longer and earn more money, but how much is enough? What do I really want?

It's interesting how many people relate to this. When I told my friends and work colleagues I was retiring, I got a variety of reactions--mostly congratulatory, with two associated sentiments. One was surprise because I'm in my early 50s and this is generally considered early to retire. And the other is affinity for my reasoning, with comments like, "That sounds great. I would love to do that."

How someone evaluates their personal wealth is often relative to those who have more, and I can tend to think this way. I would say I'm not wealthy--I am happy to drive an older car, eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and live a generally frugal lifestyle. But in comparison to many in the US and the world, I am wealthy. I have a nice home, retirement accounts saved up, cars paid off, and yes, quite a bit of expensive audio equipment! So I feel that I have enough and I am not seeking ways to accumulate more. And I consider myself fortunate that I could make this lifestyle change. My wife continues to work as a middle-school teacher, and I will put some more of my time into my Analog Ethos business, among other things.

While I officially retired according to the company policy (yes, I did receive the Simon Pearce decanter and double-old fashioned glasses as my parting gift so I can drink to forget, and some other nice-though-still-modest retirement benefits), I do not truly consider myself "retired" like I'm expecting to do nothing other than eat a leisurely breakfast and go play pickleball each day. But I am allowing myself time--a lot of time--to decide what exactly that is.

I feel there's a bit of detox going on as I let myself come down from the intensity of my former job. Maybe I could also call this a defrost, or reawakening of the person I once was. I'm trying to get back to some of my roots as a creative person. Before my corporate career, I was a designer and artist, and even younger I was involved in music and more creative things.

I realize that I love learning, and I love making things. This is why Analog Ethos has been a great side business for me: while my corporate work demanded mental effort and navigation of corporate politics, I could come home and work with my hands, make something real that looks beautiful and plays amazing music.

I recently read a few books (reading is also now high on my list as I have more time!) One was Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, by Martha Nussbaum, which makes a case for the humanities in developing a decent, competent and empathetic society and not focusing education solely on economic and profit-driven results. The second was Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, by Matthew Crawford, who walked away from academic knowledge work to be a motorcycle mechanic, and emphasizes craftsmanship, the value of the trades and working on "real things" where you can clearly see the outcomes of your work and the people you benefit as opposed to what much of white collar work has become--abstract efforts that can isolate individuals from seeing and impacting outcomes in meaningful ways.

Both of these books resonate a lot with me. I'm not running Analog Ethos to generate a big profit or drive personal wealth. I'm doing it because it's fun, I can work with my hands and make things that people love! It lets us listen to music, a wonderful creative effort that brings emotion and enjoyment into our lives!

So here I go, with the next phase of Analog Ethos, and the next phase of my life with other learning and creative efforts. I'll share more as I go, and I hope to post more on this blog, possibly with some other channels I'm considering for sharing my work and what I've learned.