The Empty Page

About this video:

Freedom sounds like the reward at the end of a long career. But what happens when you finally have all that freedom and no real reason to get up in the morning?

I’ve been learning that one for two years now. Cancer pushed me toward a transition I hadn’t planned for, and I discovered that figuring out what comes next is a lot harder than I expected.

I think retirement is a bit like a blank page. No boss, no deadlines, nobody telling you what needs to happen next. That sounds wonderful until you realize you’re the one who has to decide what to write.

I didn’t have a master plan. I started writing about what I was going through on CaringBridge. Then I tried Substack, moved into video, and brought an old podcast back to life. Each step grew out of the one before it. Four small swings, not a grand strategy.

And somewhere along the way, the writing started showing me things about myself I hadn’t noticed before. I heard my son speak in absolutes the way I do, and I had to wonder how much of that he’d learned from watching me. I don’t think I would have recognized it if I hadn’t sat down to write.

I’ve also been thinking about the people who keep working because they haven’t figured out what they’d rather do. Sometimes going back to work is the right choice. Sometimes it’s a way to postpone the harder question.

Susan Bradley describes transitions in four stages: anticipation, an ending, the fog, and a new normal. You can’t skip the fog just by going back to what you know.

I don’t have a five-step plan for this. What I have are two years of trying things, learning, and slowly discovering what might come next.

If you’re standing in front of a blank page right now, I’d like to know what’s on yours.


Transcript:

Freedom without a reason to get up isn’t a reward. It’s a second job you have to invent. Nobody warns you the invention is the whole assignment. I’ve been learning that one for two years now. Nobody hands you a syllabus. So here’s the thing about a blank page. It doesn’t scare you because it’s empty. It scares you because nothing’s stopping you.

No boss, no deadline, no excuse ready to hand, just you and a blinking cursor judging you quietly. Retirement’s the same page. Somebody just hands you a nicer pen. There’s a question I’ve come to dread. Somebody asks me what I’m doing today over breakfast. Perfectly innocent, my stomach still tightens before I answer.

You know, I’ve heard about a truck driver once secondhand. He just retired. His money was fine. He put his head in his hand anyway and said, “Don’t ever retire.” For forty years, somebody else filled his page, a route, a schedule, a load to deliver. Then the pages stopped, and nobody had taught him how to fill his own.

I didn’t retire so much as get dragged toward it by the page, cancer.

I started writing about it just to get it out of my head. That was CaringBridge. One small swing. Then one Substack article. Then my articles ran long because apparently I’ve never learned the word brief. So I tried video. Then I dusted off an old podcast. Two years, four small swings, each leaning on the last.

Nobody handed me a blueprint. You know, I’m on the other side of it now. I’m busy sixty, seventy percent of the time. Nowhere near as busy as running a business. You know, I read a post from a man who’s hit his number twice over. He said he’s hoping he gets laid off so the decision gets made for him. That’s not an indecision.

That’s hoping the world does the harder work for him, so he never has to ask what he actually wants written on his own page. I recognize that disguise. I used to wear a version of it myself. Problem shows up, I solve it, it’s done. What’s next? Brute force, not resilience. Brute force doesn’t know what to do with a blank page.

Here’s a recent example. I speak in absolutes. This is how it is delivered like a fact. A few months back, I heard my son do the exact same thing. My stomach dropped. My God, I’ve been doing this for decades, and it sounds really, really arrogant. Either he learned it from watching me or it’s just in the water.

I haven’t decided which is worse. I didn’t know that about myself until I sat down to write about it. The writing found it. I don’t think I would have otherwise. One more year becomes three, three becomes ten, we die with our boots on and call it prudence.

You know, a hiking buddy of someone I read wanted one more year to buy his dream truck. He retired on schedule anyway. Years later, still driving the old truck. Turns out the finish line moves if you let it. Some people solve the fog by going back to work. I get the pull.

But Susan Bradley spent her career sitting with people mid-transition. She talks about four stages the way you talk about weather you live through.

Anticipation, an ending, the fog, new normal. Go back to work and you haven’t skipped a heart pock. You step backward into anticipation, waiting on some future ending to show up. Not a failure, just worth calling it what it is. Postponed, not solved.

I still don’t have a five-step plan. I’d be suspicious of anyone selling you one.

What I’ve got is two years, four small swings, and a version of myself I only met because I finally sat down and looked. You know, it’s a long, strange trip from a truck driver’s kitchen to a hiking buddy’s old truck to my own. Somehow, it’s all the same page. The band keeps playing. Nobody ever really knows all the words.

You just play the next note. So what’s on your page right now? Tell me in the comments. Hey, this is Josh. You’re on the long, strange trip. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope to see you back here next week.