I'm with IloveTV. For a long time, I actually thought that stuff mattered. About 8 years ago, I began to realize that it didn't. I started to update my profile on Classmates and erased everything and replaced it with "You know, high school was a long, long time ago. Nobody cares what I did then". I'm still in touch with about 4 people from high school - and we don't talk about the past (except to remark on the deaths of people we knew well). Same with college (4 people out of over 30,000 folks). My education, my previous jobs and the like are not really relevant to being retired.
I even stopped wearing stuff from my military service. I'm still proud of serving my country. I just got tired of people who felt that they had to thank me for my service every other sentence. My memories of shipmates who gave their lives are still in a place in my heart, but no one really wants to know about who they were and why they were willing to die. On Sunday when I put flags on graves at FL National, they will be standing tall next to me in spirit and I suspect my eyes are going to be a bit misty.
My closest friends here in The Villages are folks who, like me, are enjoying whatever years we have left. We don't have to prove anything to anyone. The focus is on "now", not how special we may have thought we were in the past nor what wonderful stuff we will do in the future. Do I care how much money you have or how much your house cost? Nope. I value you for who you are right now.
If you feel the need to know about the past, that's your business. Just realize that there are some of us who are content to simply be "retired".
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