I never dreamt of early retirement. I genuinely enjoy practicing dentistry. I’m good at it and it was very lucrative without my husband and I ever compromising our ethics. What I began to hate after Covid was running a practice. Keeping and retaining employees became an issue for the first time in our careers and something that had an even bigger impact was what happened to a colleague of ours who had a great influence on us. He kept postponing retirement after 65. He bought a huge home in a country club community around that time. He finally decided to retire in 2020 at the age of 75. He retired on a Friday and died Sunday night. He didn’t have 1 day of true retirement. This was a huge eye opener for my husband and I.

As for retirement, it’s great! I have become addicted to golf after a 20 year hiatus and we are training to climb Kilimanjaro this summer. We are travelling a lot, getting to spend more time with our younger 2 kids than we ever did with our older two, and Im finally getting proficient at Korean. Finally, I am working on the clinic in ES and we are doing mission work to not let our dental skills go to waste. I wouldn’t change a thing.