Subbiah

  The morning after my father retired was strange. For 37 years, his days began the same way: a brisk walk, a hot filter coffee, a glance at the newspaper, and then off to work. That day, everything was the same—except for the last part. There was nowhere to go. No targets to meet. No phone calls buzzing with urgency. Just silence. He sat there, sipping his coffee a little slower than usual, staring at nothing in particular. I saw the same thing years later with my father-in-law. Both men had spent decades building careers, leading teams, solving problems—and in one fine morning, it all stopped. They weren’t just done with work. They were done with the rhythm of life as they knew it. And what came next was not the freedom they imagined—it was a hollow quiet that none of us had prepared for. I’ve seen this pattern elsewhere too. A couple of my ex-colleagues are working in companies that had bumper public listings. They’re sitting on piles of cash today—financially independent...