Try on a different you (just for the summer)
I’ve spent most of the last few weeks trying to work out what's been eating my plants.
Turns out it's vine weevil, which, if you’re familiar with them you’ll know, are nasty little things. The adults only come out at night, so if you want to catch them, you have to go out with a torch at 10pm and pick them off one by one. Which is exactly what I've been doing. Crouched in the flowerbeds in the dark, hunting beetles by torchlight.
It is not, on paper, a productive use of an evening. And yet it might be the most relaxing thing I've done all year.
The person who comes out in summer
There's a version of me who exists mostly between June and September. She reads actual books, not just the first three pages before falling asleep. She notices the light changing in the evening and thinks it's worth sitting outside for. She has opinions about hydrangeas. She is, frankly, a bit more laid back than the version of me who exists the rest of the year - the one juggling work, family and school pick-ups and a to-do list that regenerates like a hydra. And I enjoy being her, for a change.
I don't think I'm alone in this. Summer seems to give us permission to try on a different identity, temporarily and safely. The diary slows down a little, the evenings stretch out and for a few weeks, it feels possible to be someone whose worth isn't measured in output.
The important word there is temporarily - that's what makes it safe. You know you're going back - nobody's really testing whether "reads books and looks at plants" is a viable long-term identity, because September is coming and the emails are still there. It's a glimpse, not a decision.
But glimpses are worth paying attention to. Because underneath the sunshine and the slower pace, there's a genuinely useful question hiding: who are you when you're not working - and have you actually let yourself find out?
It was never really about retirement
I talk to a lot of women in their fifties and early sixties who are, by any sensible measure, doing well. They've built something and they have options. And yet a huge amount of their mental energy goes on a low hum of anxiety about "What's next" - usually dressed up as a question about money. “Do I have enough? Have I got a million? What does the number need to be?”
But the question is very rarely actually about the number.
It's about identity. Somewhere along the way, an awful lot of us became the job. The title, the responsibility, the being-needed - it's a genuinely strong sense of purpose, and it's completely understandable that it's hard to imagine letting go of it. But relying on your work for your entire sense of who you are is a bit like renting your identity from someone else. It works beautifully right up until the lease ends - through redundancy, restructuring, or just someone else's decision - and then it's not in your control at all.
So the question I'd rather sit with isn't "When can I retire?" It's closer to: “If you already knew you were financially independent - if the number genuinely wasn't the obstacle - would you still be doing what you're doing?”
That's not always a comfortable question. For some people the honest answer is yes, and that's wonderful - there's real value in choosing to work because you want to, not because you have to. For others, it's a much more interesting and slightly frightening no. And that's precisely the conversation worth having, ideally well before the decision gets made for you.
One thing, not the whole plan
You don't have to solve any of this by September. Nobody's asking you to overhaul your identity between now and the bank holiday.
What I'd genuinely suggest is smaller than that. Notice what you're doing differently on holiday this year - the pace, the priorities, the version of yourself there when nobody's watching the clock. Then ask: what's the one small piece of that I could actually bring home with me?
It doesn't have to be big. It can be a walk before the laptop opens. An evening with a book instead of a screen. Ten minutes of doing genuinely nothing useful. It's a tapestry of small things, not one grand reinvention - and it's a lot easier to build a life around a tapestry than around a single, terrifying decision about "the future".
The planning work - the actual, proper financial planning work - isn't really about the arithmetic. It's about building the readiness so that when you ask yourself the harder questions, you've got real choices sitting behind the answer, not just a hope.
For now, though, I'll be out with my torch again tonight, looking for beetles. There are worse ways to spend an evening.
If any of this is stirring something up - about work, identity, or what "enough" might actually mean for you - I'd love to talk it through. Contact me: https://www.56wealth.com/contact