I think a bunch of the items on the list pertaining to being in the spotlight can be crossed off. If you don’t have the type of personality that thrives under or craves the spotlight you are not going to get anywhere near the presidency. At least all modern presidents.
I’ve heard of long-time politicians essentially forgetting how to drive. ISTR a governor of California (?) saying he had to learn how to drive again after he left office. Both Clintons have said something similar.
After having someone do every little life task for you for years, you must become dependent on your minders. I would hate that.
You or I would want a sedate life after being President. But that’s one of the things that keeps you or I from ever becoming President. You have to have an extraordinary amount of drive to become President and you can’t just shut that off one day because you no longer have any use for it.
I’ll grant that Taft held a significant office after leaving the White House. But he left the White House in 1913 and no President has done so since. Former presidents now are given positions as ceremonial figureheads.
seriously
You are on duty 24/7/365 for 4 or 8 years in a row. If you take an afternoon to relax it makes headline news even though you are in fingertip reach of all the communications necessary to fulfill your role as POTUS.
You, and more particularly your family, cannot travel on vacation without raising the ire of political opponents ranting about the cost to the public purse. It’s not like the Secret Service would let the First Family travel coach on Delta.
Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama and/or their families have all been vilified for such travel. Probably been going on far further back than that.
I hoped that with Obama’s reelection we could finally do away with those tacky flag lapel pins, but apparently not even the president of the US is powerful enough to defeat those things. There’s a lot about politics that baffles me, but this most of all, how we as a nation still haven’t yet become lucid as to how utterly ridiculous it is to demand our most powerful politicians put on a stupid trinket like they’re a 6 year old at a state fair.
Some drawbacks from the perspectives of the presidents themselves (from Futility Closet):
Thomas Jefferson: “To myself, personally, it brings nothing but unceasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.”
John Quincy Adams: “the four most miserable years of my life.”
Andrew Jackson: “I can with truth say mine is a situation of dignified slavery.”
James Garfield: “My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get in it?”
Taft: “I’ll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a president simply to hear other people talk.”
Taft to Wilson: “I’m glad to be going — this is the lonesomest place in the world.”
Woodrow Wilson: “I never dreamed such loneliness and desolation of heart possible.”
Warren G. Harding: “This White House is a prison. I can’t get away from the men who dog my footsteps. I am in jail.”
Herbert Hoover: “A few hair shirts are part of the wardrobe of every man. The President differs from other men in that he has a much more extensive wardrobe.”
Harry Truman: “Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.”
Your children aren’t allowed a bad hair day.
The First Spouse is the First Spouse, in any country, although most countries will respect that there is a difference between when they’re “at work” and when they’re out for coffee with a friend. But if you ask me what do the children of most presidents/PMs look like, I have no idea, and that includes people who lived with their parent while said parent was In Charge. The children of the POTUS are as photographed and criticised as those of royalty and they live in a country in which it is customary to publish pics of random people in order to point and laugh.
I love the Truman quote about the White House being “the jewel of the federal prison system”.
It will be interesting to see what Obama does in his post-Presidency, probably somewhere between Carter and Clinton.
On a personal note, I’d really like him to solve the sagging pants issue once and for all.
“Brothers should pull up their pants!”
I read a good book about the White House history (trivia - the White Hoiuse used to be working farm. When was the last official Presidential cow?) and one issue for the first lady is they have to host state dinners.
One big issue is guests stealing the white house dishes and silverware. It seems every time they host a state meal guests, whether they be celebrities or visiting dignitaries and their families, they all want a souvenir so they steal the white house forks and all. So after every meal the staff has to count everything and replace what is missing. There is where the problem comes in. The White House furnishings are either paid for by the president, given as donations, or they must ask congress for money.
The president gets a free house but has to deal with 10,000 people a day walking thru it. Seriously I once read how one of the Nixon daughters had her bedroom right above a door and how hard it was to rest in her room when thousands of people were literally within a few feet below.
It is similar for governors who live in the governors mansion. I once talked to the daughter of John Ashcroft, former governor of Missouri and she says the governors mansion smelled like an old museum and it always felt cold and creaked alot.
I’ve often thought their ought to be some sort of informal ex-president roundtable where they meet up say every 6 months and talk about issues. After all often they are dealing with the same issues or world leaders.
That’s right. I remember in the 2008 campaign there was a big deal made about Obama not wearing a flag pin, while pictures of the early Republican debates show fewer than half the GOP candidates wearing such a pin.
And one more thing- being president means you MUST end every speech with “and may God bless the United States of America”. Now our chief executive is powerless to end a tradition started with Reagan.
Yeah, Dukakis missed that memo…
Couldn’t resist the selective editing. 
Usually… but not always.
Sounds like that’s an advantage to being Pope over being POTUS, then The guy in the white dress gets to try on all kinds of funny hats!
I have often thought that the desire to be President immediately and paradoxically disqualifies the person from the office based on questionable mental stability.
Bush I and Clinton appear to be friendly; Carter and Ford definitely were. Wouldn’t surprise me if either pair did meet periodically.
Do you want a President who doesn’t want to be President? How effective would such a person be?