Rant #3,902: Jealousy (Envy)

I have many "friends" on Facebook.

Some are real friends, some are true "Facebook" friends.

I am also friendly with many Facebook users who I grew up with in Rochdale Village, Queens, New York.

My Rochdale friends and I are all joined at the hip, even though I haven't seen many of these people in decades.

That was an incredible place to grow up in, and I have made friends--and "friends"--for life from that community.

I just read about another one of us who has retired, and he is setting his future employment path as he retires from the second major job that he has had in his lifetime.

He still wants to work, which is great--

He obviously loves what he is doing, and hopes to continue to do it, or something else, to keep active, busy and vital.

I wished him the best, with the "caveat" that I add seemingly every time I find out that one of my old buddies is retiring--

"I hope that your retirement is better than mine . ... I envy those who can determine their own destiny, and not have it determined for them."

Yes, it is sour grapes on my part, but yes, I really do believe what I say as I wish these people "good luck."

Nothing--

And I mean absolutely nothing--

Has gone right for me since I was forced into retirement going on seven years ago.

A lot of it has been coincidence, such as losing both of my parents right in the middle of this mess.

They lived long, fulfilling lives, and they really lived life to the fullest.

But a lot of the things on my end that I have gone through during the past seven years have really been horrid, and more importantly, completely out of my control.

It all started with looking for work during perhaps the worst period to be unemployed in our world's history, during the pandemic.

I was also in my early 60s in what I learned was a dead field--old fashioned writing/editing, which has given way to the "new" journalism, what you read on the Internet--and it didn't help that I wrote about a field--military resale--that few knew anything about.

Yes, I was lucky to get the job that I eventually got--writing about that same field, military resale--but I never had a chance to retire on my own terms--

Which so many of the people that I know were able to do.

I experience jealousy--or is it envy--every time I hear about one of my peers retiring on his/her own terms, and it really throws me off kilter.

Envy or jealousy?

It has made me jealous, or envious, in a way, traits that I didn't know that I had, because I have never been jealous or envious of anybody or anything that I can recall in my life.

I am working because I have to, but my life was taken away from me when I lost my job right before the pandemic.

My health has definitely suffered--I went from about the healthiest person I know to just the opposite--we lost our house, my family fractured and let's be honest about it, things did not go the way I expected them to go.

I so just want to retire, but I know that I can't.

My family and I need whatever money I make to live in an environment where by being forced to take early Social Security, my monthly payments were fouled up, generating a monthly sum that is unlivable without some other revenue source.

I know I sound like I am constantly crabbing about this, but I wonder why my path to "retirement"--or "retirement purgatory" as I put it--became so messed up.

Reflecting back, I had many, many interviews in both my chosen field--teaching--and when I had to pivot--to editing/writing--when that didn't work out the way it should have.

When I became an editor/writer, I also had many interviews back in the day, with many large firms and companies--

But it just never worked out.

I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In education, I was looking to be either a middle school or high school English teacher, and I ran into a brick wall in trying to do that--

School districts were not hiring teachers during that period of time because of enrollment drop offs, and certainly not English teachers, because I later found out that English teachers stay with the profession longer than teachers in any other discipline.

In editing/writing, I ran into so many brick walls that it is truly amazing ...

Women were being more integrated into the workforce in elevated roles from secretaries, as were minorities in more elevated roles, and I know for a fact that I lost out on several jobs because of my gender and race.

And I had absolutely no "ins," nobody who could open the door for me and help me out.

So I ended up working for smaller concerns, not big companies, and while there are benefits to working for small companies, the negatives are that you basically work for today, not tomorrow, with many of these firms ...

In fact, my last employer only started a 401K plan during my middle period with that firm, so I had already worked at least 10 years there with nothing planned for the future--

And they stopped that plan right in its tracks when things started to go sour.

My family and I are far from destitute, but we are in a position where it is not my "choice" to work, I have to work, and it makes me very uncomfortable, because at this point, I want to hang it up and move on.

My father worked into his 80s, until his hearing became so bad that many passengers in his taxi cab were taking advantage of him ... like not paying for rides.

He loved his job, he really did, and he hated to give it up ...

But I can tell you until he became ill, he loved retirement after working for something like 70 years, since he worked at my father's butcher store as a pre-teen and teenager.

I don't look a gift horse in the mouth; thank God I have this little job that I have, as heaven knows what I would be doing now if I didn't have it.

But all I want to do is to retire, flat out retire, so I can choose my own destiny.

So again, when I read of an old pal who put in his time, is retiring for the second time, and looks to continue a career path not because he needs to but because he wants to, that is something that I really think is great.

But it makes me oh so envious -- or is it jealous--because I simply cannot do that.

Jealousy is a very, very bad trait to have, and being envious isn't any better, and I really wish I wasn't this way, but life has thrown me a lot of curves, and it appears that I am one of those guys who simply cannot hit a curve ball.

Strike one, strike two, strike three.

I'm out.