Thread by @zcobb

Really struggling with the word ‘retired’ right now. Yes, I retired from the corporate world of cybersecurity, but I’m still very much in the world, spending my time on other things: caregiving, independent research, personal reflection, documenting my affairs, and so on. 1/5

The “affairs” I’m trying to document are not those of the heart. I’m referring to things like financial accounts, email accounts, and all that digital stuff we have, i.e. everything that will need to be dealt with when I die. And let me tell you friends, ain’t no small thing. 2/5

My father died when he was 50 and I was 20. It was very sudden. There was no will and no set of instructions. His affairs were handled by me and his brother and my mum. We coped okay, but that was nearly five decades ago. Things have changed. Let me count the ways. 3/5

When my dad died in 1973 he had zero:
Credit cards
Online bank accounts
Social media accounts
Email accounts
Mobile phones
Domain names
Websites
Cloud storage
Annual software licenses
Streaming media accounts
Encrypted data
Computers
User names
Passwords
PINs
4/5

Frankly, I shouldn’t have waited until ‘retirement’ to tackle the challenges of documenting my affairs (and much kudos if you’re already on top of this, so to speak). Of course, being me, I’m thinking: should I be doing more to raise awareness of these challenges. Retirement? 5/5