retirement
A normal retirement can easily last a couple of decades, and an early retirement could lead to half-a-lifetime remaining once some leaves their primary vocation.
I had established my retirement funding to cover things regardless of my working. Anything I earned would be added to our overall net worth, not increasing our budget or spending. It freed me to purposely target opportunities based solely on interest.
What I enjoyed most about my scaled-down retirement jobs was being able to leave it all there at work. It was no longer my job to take care of the world. That was left for the career driven go-getters who still needed to.
I vowed to be reliable, do my job, and learn all I could from the experience. No more sacrificing my personal life or covering for incompetence, outdated and overworked software/hardware/machinery, or doing more than I really wanted to do.
Turning down every offer of taking an on-call duty, working a nonscheduled weekend or holiday, and any overtime was a whole different feeling of freedom.
Losing and no longer bogged down with legacy work history was a refreshing aspect to my scaled-down retirement jobs.
I had retired early with a modest mortgage that we had refinanced to get the lowest budget-friendly payment possible. I was able to pay that off from my earnings over an 18 month retirement job stretch.