Depending on what type of retreat, if you leave with too much idealism (How many times does Rosemary say that in our Day 10 talk?), yes, you are going to have difficulties at work, with friend and your partner. You are going to expect them to act and be as nice and kind as everything you have been listening to for 9 days, and feeling how much you have grown yourself, you are going to expect them to be different. And if you don't expect them to be different, you are going to be expecting them to see that you are different. Expectations. As long as you have expectations, you have Dukkha.
When you leave the retreat, remind yourself, "The world hasn't changed out there." Your friends and everyone who did not do the retreat, the people at work, they are not going to be any different and in many ways they may even get angrier at you, because they see what you do and it threatens them. So actually as I said a few days ago reflect on Dukkha, then you expect it. Reflect that the world won't change just because you are changing.
The point here is, if you really are changing, then it doesn't matter if the world changes or not. This is what we are doing here, if you change and you get back to work and they are still grumpy and angry, you don't have to get grumpy back, you don't have to be angry back, you can keep the changes you have made. Try not to be affected by them not changing. In this way you won't have as many difficulties.
But if you do have major difficulties, ok, you go back to work the day after the retreat and you really clearly see, this is not what you want, maybe then it is time to change your work. Maybe that bigger difficulty the day after the retreat is actually helpful, that it actually says to you, "Look, this isn't what you want." Don't come back to that every time after a retreat, if it is always going to be a pain, if it is always going to be a filled with difficulty, maybe that is the message you need that says, "Hey, it is time to change your job, it is time to change your lifestyle, it is time to change the friends and people you live with or are around." So sometimes the difficulties may be little signs to you, to look more closely to what life is all about.