Anxiety After Retirement — How Running Became My Anchor
Anxiety after retirement.
This is how I survived the collapse that came after 20 years of corporate life—by running.
I. When familiar faces disappear
In a marathon club, there are faces you see every week.
And then one day, they simply stop showing up for a while.
With younger runners, you assume it’s just life—work, family, schedules.
But when men in their 40s and 50s disappear,
it often means they’re going through a major shift—financially, emotionally, or both.
I was one of them.
My mind didn’t hold up as easily as I expected.
There were moments when my mental strength quietly collapsed.
But during that time,
running held me together.
II. Youth had its own kind of romance
In my late 20s,
there were days I’d listen to “Around Thirty” and sink into emotions.
Finding a job was still the biggest concern,
but back then, we had a strange kind of space in our hearts—
room to cry, to laugh, to miss someone who had already left.
Looking back,
it was hard—
but it still had romance.
III. The moment you grow distant from the workplace
The place where you spent the most time,
sometimes even more than home.
And then, one day,
you start to feel it—skin-deep—
that the place no longer needs you the way it used to.
For many people,
that age comes somewhere between the mid-40s and the 50s.
It becomes an age where you endure more with responsibility than with emotion.
IV. Starting a one-person business—almost pushed into it
I have a cautious personality—Type A, the kind that avoids risk.
Running a business was never part of the plan.
A stable paycheck,
working until retirement—
I believed that was simply how life worked.
Even when I was hospitalized for 10 days with meningitis during a business trip in Europe,
I said this:
“I’m sorry I couldn’t handle my work, boss.”
Looking back,
I wasn’t thinking normally.
I had believed the company was everything.
And yet, I eventually started my own business.
V. When stamina and mental strength collapse together
After retirement, I didn’t know what to do next.
Whenever I asked for advice, the answer was always the same:
“The economy is bad these days…”
Then a sentence came back to me.
“Even with nine strengths,
one weakness can kill your momentum.”
I had many weaknesses.
But the one that broke me the most
was stamina.
“Don’t just worry.
Start with what you can do—today.”
For me,
that became running 10km every day.
VI. Running every day
For the first two months,
I ran 10km or more almost every day.
I didn’t even have an office.
I was borrowing my old desk from my previous workplace.
One day, a senior member of the club said to me:
“Trying to live two lives at once will exhaust you.”
That line stayed with me.
On days when good memories turned into quiet pain, I ran.
When anxiety rose, I ran.
When fear came, I ran.
Even when nothing happened, I ran.
VII. An age sustained by responsibility
When we run together,
we mostly show each other our smiles.
But everyone carries a hard season.
Mid-40s to early 50s—
to protect an ordinary life,
to come home and see our families,
we endure with responsibility.
And I,
endure that time
by running.
Responsibility Never Retires
The end of 20 years in corporate life—yet our responsibility continues.
