If you’ve just arrived and you’re not sure where to begin — this page is for you.
I’m Farook. I’m 69, retired, living in Vung Tau, Vietnam with my wife Hau and a poodle who believes every morning walk is the first one ever invented. I spent forty years in manufacturing — Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam — and then one Tuesday morning in 2019, none of that was my life anymore.
I started this site because I couldn’t find anyone writing honestly about what retirement actually feels like. Not the money part. Not the travel part. The inside part. What happens to your sense of self when the title disappears. What loneliness looks like at 4pm on a Thursday. Where joy comes from when you’re no longer earning it.
So I started writing about it from my kitchen in Vung Tau. Here’s where to begin, depending on where you are right now.
Loneliness · Isolation
If the quiet has been getting to you
It was a Thursday afternoon. Hau was away. I hadn’t had a real conversation in three days. And the silence in my house got so loud it startled me. This is the piece I almost didn’t write — because admitting you’re lonely at 69 feels like confessing you’ve failed at something everyone else figured out. They haven’t.
→ When the House Goes Quiet: On the Loneliness of Retirement
Happiness · Purpose
If you’re still figuring out what this season is for
I spent forty years believing happiness was something you arrived at. Get the promotion. Close the deal. Retire. The thing kept evaporating the moment I reached it. This is what I’m noticing now — standing in my kitchen at 7am, making eggs for my wife before she leaves for work. The quiet fullness I don’t have a better word for.
Learning · Curiosity
If you’ve caught yourself thinking “I’m too old for this”
My 72-year-old neighbour knocked on my door to show me a video she’d made on her phone — edited, soundtracked, sent to her grandchildren in Australia. Three weeks earlier she’d been ready to throw the thing into the sea. When I asked what changed, she said: “I decided to get curious instead of feeling stupid.” I stood there a moment too long because those words had landed somewhere uncomfortable.
Technology · Practical
If technology makes you feel left behind
Your phone is the most powerful tool you own — and most of us use about ten percent of what it can do. No jargon. No cheerleading. What I actually use, and why.
Take something with you
Those articles will get you started. But if you’d like something to sit with — away from the screen, in your own time — I’ve put together a free guide.
It’s called The 5 Keys to Retirement Happiness. Twenty-four pages. Not a financial checklist. Not health advice. An honest, warm guide to what retirement actually feels like — the identity shifts, the losses, the strange freedoms, and the small, deliberate choices that make a day feel worth living.
Inside, you’ll find five keys — Beginning Again, Gratitude, Finding Your Why, Connection, and Money as Tool — each with reflection questions to help you apply them to your own life. At the end, a simple framework I call the 5-Key Compass, so you can find your way back to what matters when the quiet gets loud.
It’s the thing I wish someone had handed me when I first stepped into this season.
No spam. No sharing. Just the guide, plus the occasional letter from my kitchen in Vung Tau.
Ready when you are.
Get the Free Guide — The 5 Keys to Retirement Happiness →Keep well and enjoy the journey,
Farook