I’m 70, I spent 35 years at a job I tolerated, and I retired expecting to finally be happy – here’s what nobody tells you about the unhappiness that follows you into your older years

Retirement doesn’t erase what you carried for decades—it just removes the distractions that kept you from noticing it. What follows isn’t a lack of freedom, but the realization that happiness was never waiting at the finish line - it needed to be built along the way.