A few months back I retired at age 57. I figure since age sixteen I had only had a month or so not working at least part time. I rarely missed a day of work. I left over 400 hours of accumulated sick leave behind when I retired. It took me only a week to adjust to not working. I like to say I am "busy doing nothing". I was going to get digital cable and sign up for Netflix after I retired but I haven't, too many "pots on the stove". Looks like this will keep me busy until Spring so I can put off the fancy TV until next winter.I had a fairly good job with good pay but as the early retirement option approached it quit being "fun". If I needed to work it wasn't bad but, to answer the hypothetical question: I had won a million dollars would I quit the job? The answer is yes! That one million dollars would be enough to cover my situation, if for example, I woke out of a coma at age 57. First off, how important is work to your socialising? At work I saw a lot of people who have a lot of their social interaction involved with work. I called this "talking at people". I made a few friends at work but none became my "drinking buddies". I don't think I ever "sexaully harrassed" at work but being a white male there were "two strikes" against you so I avoided dating women from work. As you age the "marketplace" increasingly favors the single male (though "Hot Chick Friday" here does not encourage the process of dating women closer to my age.) . Many middle age women are still pretty "hot" including a lot of the single mothers whose children are now on their own. They raised their children on tight budgets so they can be very practical. Bridge health insurance is a tough one. I got the same coverage through work at only a token cost. If you have to get it market, it can be very expensive.In retirement, especially early retirement, money is very relavent. I paid off my mortgage on http://searshouse.com and all other debts a couple of years before early retirement. I had autopay on these through the work credit union. As these zeroed out I kept the very substantial payroll deduction in place so I was "paycheck poor" but saving a substantial amount the last few years of work. My goal now is to no longer accrue savings but not dip into the "nest egg". I have a solid "defined pension". I no longer pay union dues, SSI or medicare and am now in the lowest tax bracket. My monthly "take home" is around $500 per month more than before. This extra "take home" makes all the difference.As far as other income goes the pension is high enough so I will probably wait until age 66 for Social Security. I figure this will be for medical and other age related costs.As for other work I can pretty do anything I want in the private sector. I haven't really checked but I think I have under $5K left in the lowest tax backets so beyond that, with work on the books the government will get 40%. If I like the work it is worth it but otherwise not. I worked on things like paying off the mortgage so my housing costs are low.Retirement, especially early retirement is nice if you have the finances lined up. As my last boss said "Retirement is doing what you want to do."Oddly, my "internet activism" for lack of a better term has gone way down since retirement. I've done a lot of reading/research but not a lot of posting, even to my own websites. Perhaps it is a way to "let off steam" and my "stress" is way down.BTW: I was up in the northern burbs Wednesday. Mountain Crest Beer is $7.99 a flat/case. http://www.topvaluliquor.com/As they say at http://minhasbrewery.com/ "Damn good beer!". A benifit of retirement is that I could make my weekly trip to the Northern burbs from "south of the I-35W collapse on Wednesday. On Thursday snow was erroniously predicted.