OK, I am thinking, I am thinking.

If you could pay all the bills, keep all your toys and eat to an accepted level of happiness and not work would you work? Should you work? This is a question I have been “chewing” on all week, ever since we figured out that in fact if I were out of work and elected to return to subsidized living (SSDI) We could actually make it.

A couple of years ago the question :If you are a person with a disability do you have an obligation to work? was floating round the Independent Living Community. We often came away from such bull sessions feeling yes! If you can work you should work. I was shocked more then once when more then one of the national IL leaders indicated they did not necessarily buy this line of thinking. These guys came back with questions like : Why work if you will nopt be able to make enough money to cover your expenses, or What good is working if you do not have the energy left at the end of your or if your working tears up your body so bad you become more disabled.

So, I am starting a very unscientific survey. I am calling my friends with disabilities and asking them the above questions. Would you work if you did not have too. I talked. I called my old friend , JB who works at a local private non-profit as a counselor for folks with disabilities. Julie herself is a partial quadriplegic using wheelchair for mobility since she was two. She has worked at this private-non-profit for nearly twenty years. JB feels she needs to work, that she HAS to work to help pay the bills at home. JB works a 40 hour week and she is getting tired. She has been in her wheelchair for about 45 years and she like many of us older crips is just wearing out. JB be says that she would have no problems at all, not working if she could get away with not working.

As I have perceived this question in regard to me, personally, I am finding that I really am considering the idea of retiring while I am still physically and mentally able to enjoy life. I could retire then go back to work and work just enough to get benefits (if I need them) or to keep myself alert.

I have to Admit as I returned to the office following a week’s vacation I was surprised to find I did enjoy coming back to the office. I liked getting up early being forced to be dressed and out the door and to an office, a phone, a computer and other liker minded folks. I like the train ride in and back at the end of the day. I liked doing my job, interacting with people who called and giving them the information they wanted and listening to these folks respond like I had done something really special just for them. I guess I could do all this from some sort of a volunteer platform but that is just not the same as being “officially part of something, with a picture ID, password and a 401K.