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Retirement: an unsettling experience
Well, after 48.5 years of solid work and 6 months from State Retirement Age I'm hanging up my pen and cursor this week. I feel far from 'shot/knackered/spent' and I've been looking forward to escape my partly-mundane, sedentary and often frustrating work and replacing it with a myriad of things I enjoy but which I have vowed to shut my trap about on here.
I went part-time four years ago and haven't been into the office since March 2020 so it's not the same as the sudden jolt of going from full-time to fully-retired overnight. Most of my peers have already retired (and stepped up their physical exercise with the extra hours of leisure and as I intend to) so the former 'craic' at work wouldn't be the same if I returned.
The next few months are chocker with trips planned around the UK (seeing friends, attending gigs and City games and engaging more in one of my pastimes) and next year, if it is safe to do so my net will be casting even further afield and for longer periods.
Retirement for me and for many others means getting involved in more activities (and pleasurable ones) than ever before. No inept management to answer to any more, no frustrating and laborious work processes to endure any longer and no confines of any description (although they were minimal compared to many people's work environments).
So what's the problem I hear you not asking.....
It just feels weird thinking that:
1. One's expertise at work won't ever exercised or sought after again
2. Not working seems like a guilty luxury to this person of working class stock when many people around the world are scratching about for a living
3. I don't feel old and decrepit enough to cease work. (A strange notion for some people but it was a concept that which was familiar to many of our parents)
I have already created a timetable for me to indulge in physical and intellectual tasks every day but am I going to end up typing on here every hour of the day dressed just in a string vest with fried egg stains on it and with my goolies hanging out?
Answers on a post card, please.......
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
You deserve to take things easy and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise- do what floats your boat to fill your leisure time matey !!
My mate was sixty in January
He’d worked as a butcher for 44 years
The company he worked for wanted him to stay on but his wife insisted he deserved to stay at home to do what he pleased 😀
After six months of completing any chores by twelve then going down the pub until eight 🍺🍺🍺🍺she soon changed her mind lol
He’s back working full time 🤣
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
I finished a day before my 60th birthday in May. I'd had enough of work and wanted a change. I might look for some part time work in a few months but at the moment I am enjoying doing what I want, when I want. However, I have had all of the feelings you list. It's taken me a long time to stop waking up at 6:30 every morning (I still do it some days) and sitting in bed with a mug of tea doing the crossword makes me feel guilty. I should be up doing something.
I'm really enjoying the spontaneity being retired allows though. My wife and I have just got back from a bike ride, entirely unplanned, we just said "the weather's nice, lets go for a ride", similarly we have been out for meals on the spur of the moment and taken the caravan away for short breaks. In many ways it is like the days before we had children.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Congratulations on your retirement.
I've scaled things down at 54 and only work part time now. I got sick of chasing the Yankee dollar realising that being comfortable with a moderate income that just about covers the monthly outgoings is better for the head.
The dog is thrilled having 2 hour walks most days and I fill in the rest of the time doing a bit of voluntary work with a local environmental group and the woodland trust.
Can highly recommend a bit of voluntary work 👍
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
Well, after 48.5 years of solid work and 6 months from State Retirement Age I'm hanging up my pen and cursor this week. I feel far from 'shot/knackered/spent' and I've been looking forward to escape my partly-mundane, sedentary and often frustrating work and replacing it with a myriad of things I enjoy but which I have vowed to shut my trap about on here.
I went part-time four years ago and haven't been into the office since March 2020 so it's not the same as the sudden jolt of going from full-time to fully-retired overnight. Most of my peers have already retired (and stepped up their physical exercise with the extra hours of leisure and as I intend to) so the former 'craic' at work wouldn't be the same if I returned.
The next few months are chocker with trips planned around the UK (seeing friends, attending gigs and City games and engaging more in one of my pastimes) and next year, if it is safe to do so my net will be casting even further afield and for longer periods.
Retirement for me and for many others means getting involved in more activities (and pleasurable ones) than ever before. No inept management to answer to any more, no frustrating and laborious work processes to endure any longer and no confines of any description (although they were minimal compared to many people's work environments).
So what's the problem I hear you not asking.....
It just feels weird thinking that:
1. One's expertise at work won't ever exercised or sought after again
2. Not working seems like a guilty luxury to this person of working class stock when many people around the world are scratching about for a living
3. I don't feel old and decrepit enough to cease work. (A strange notion for some people but it was a concept that which was familiar to many of our parents)
I have already created a timetable for me to indulge in physical and intellectual tasks every day but am I going to end up typing on here every hour of the day dressed just in a string vest with fried egg stains on it and with my goolies hanging out?
Answers on a post card, please.......
I would think the mere fct you felt the need to create a timetable to fill your day si a worrying fact of itself?
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RichardM
I finished a day before my 60th birthday in May. I'd had enough of work and wanted a change. I might look for some part time work in a few months but at the moment I am enjoying doing what I want, when I want. However, I have had all of the feelings you list. It's taken me a long time to stop waking up at 6:30 every morning (I still do it some days) and sitting in bed with a mug of tea doing the crossword makes me feel guilty. I should be up doing something.
I'm really enjoying the spontaneity being retired allows though. My wife and I have just got back from a bike ride, entirely unplanned, we just said "the weather's nice, lets go for a ride", similarly we have been out for meals on the spur of the moment and taken the caravan away for short breaks. In many ways it is like the days before we had children.
Does your caravan enjoy short breaks? Sorry :getscoat:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xsnaggle
I would think the mere fct you felt the need to create a timetable to fill your day si a worrying fact of itself?
Why so? I have a lot of things I want to do every week - and I don't want my mind or body to go to seed. Or in the case my body, I aim to get fitter than I am now and, in general, I don't just want to loaf around frittering away time aimlessly.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Will you now have retirement colleagues?
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
The Bloop
Will you now have retirement colleagues?
No, just non-work colleagues :hehe:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
I was going to learn how to get tickets off the tinternet from Cardiff City.
Then I discovered afternoon tele :hehe:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
No, just non-work colleagues :hehe:
Have you considered the G word? (Golf)
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
Why so? I have a lot of things I want to do every week - and I don't want my mind or body to go to seed. Or in the case my body, I aim to get fitter than I am now and, in general, I don't just want to loaf around frittering away time aimlessly.
Firstly, congratulations on your retirement.
Secondly, what a shitter that someone who loves traveling is retiring into this situation, but it looks to be improving and I hope we hear more of your stories from your travels
As for doing a timetable, I think that is an excellent idea. I have often thought that retiring would be like breaking up from school for the summer months, only to return in September thinking "Oh, I didn't do any of that". I hope you stay in good health, but remember you will never be as young as you are today.
I have been saving extensively for my own retirement, and the plan is that I will pack in work in 10 years time when I hit 55. By that stage I will have paid for my house. I have no other debts. I will sell my house, move to a smaller one, and use that money to have a few years of fun and travel. If I have to return to work, it will not be in the stress riddled environment of my current expertise. The job pays well, and I have been chucking 20% of my wages into my pension, and the company have been putting in 10%. It will be a good pension.
"1. One's expertise at work won't ever exercised or sought after again
2. Not working seems like a guilty luxury to this person of working class stock when many people around the world are scratching about for a living
3. I don't feel old and decrepit enough to cease work. (A strange notion for some people but it was a concept that which was familiar to many of our parents)"
Point 1. So what? You've doubtless helped and shown plenty of people the ropes. I often think about advice I've received from a myriad of mentors who have long since departed the working life. That advice I have passed onto younger colleagues. Your expertise will carry on in various forms.
2. Guilt is the last thing you need to feel. Retirement is earnt. One way to alleviate this would be/ could be to do some volunteering work. Maybe on a once a week basis, whatever suits you. But, you don't owe anyone anything mate. Maybe you've got lucky in life, but luck is the reward of hard graft (except bad luck in health). I've had bad luck with a redundancy or two, that was out of my control. Getting a better job after each was because of skills I worked hard to get, and experiences I worked hard to find. I doubt it's much different for any of us.
3. Thanks to modern science and medicine, and modern work practices, people are no longer going from 6 weeks of retirement to a grave because of coal dust, chronic illnesses from working with asbestos, or just sheer exhaustion. These are all things that you made possible by working for 48.5 years and paying taxes to help educate these people.
Best of luck with your retirement. Please don't follow the example of some on here who will happily spunk their hard earned leisure talking shit. That would give you every reason to feel guilty. We live once. There is no after life. There is no reincarnation. We are a long time dead. Get out there and live the life you have earnt and well done.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
I was made redundant (2nd time) 9 years ago. So I couldn't face not doing anything and went self employed on a consultancy basis. I am supposed to work about 3 days per week, but generally do about 1.5. At 66 years old I have been working since September 1972, so I hope to make it 50 years next year. I;d be bored without something to do, or not have enough money to do what i want. The last 18 months have not been good , same as all of us, not allowed to work for most of it. But less stressed than when working full time.
But it's getting busier now as...... the football season starts and we can go. I've been to the two home friendlies, and we have four homes games in August - I'll be knackered!!
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BLUETIT
I was going to learn how to get tickets off the tinternet from Cardiff City.
Then I discovered afternoon tele :hehe:
Oh God. A few years of Homes Under the Hammer and Loose Women and you'll wake up one day wondering if you could have done something, well, ANYthing worthwhile. :hehe:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BLUETIT
I was going to learn how to get tickets off the tinternet from Cardiff City.
Then I discovered afternoon tele :hehe:
Who turned it on for you? :hehe:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Allez Allez Allez
Oh God. A few years of Homes Under the Hammer and Loose Women and you'll wake up one day wondering if you could have done something, well, ANYthing worthwhile. :hehe:
Na, not that rubbish.
Dickinson's Real Deal. :thumbup:, then Alibi for the antique shows
Some people will buy any old sh!t
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Welshcake.
Have you considered the G word? (Golf)
No need. I have more than enough interests to fill my time, thanks.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
Who turned it on for you? :hehe:
It is an effort, sometimes it's got a mind of it's own
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Welshcake.
Have you considered the G word? (Golf)
I'm more into the G spot (how do you find it :hehe:)
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BLUETIT
It is an effort, sometimes it's got a mind of it's own
I remember watching the Olympics on TV before remote controls existed. I used to use a long stick with a rubber end to push the channel buttons from the sofa.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
I remember watching the Olympics on TV before remote controls existed. I used to use a long stick with a rubber end to push the channel buttons from the sofa.
My old man used to think he was some kind of television engineer. When the old box went on the blink, a firm bang on the top of the set with his fist always seemed to do the trick.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
Well, after 48.5 years of solid work and 6 months from State Retirement Age I'm hanging up my pen and cursor this week. I feel far from 'shot/knackered/spent' and I've been looking forward to escape my partly-mundane, sedentary and often frustrating work and replacing it with a myriad of things I enjoy but which I have vowed to shut my trap about on here.
I went part-time four years ago and haven't been into the office since March 2020 so it's not the same as the sudden jolt of going from full-time to fully-retired overnight. Most of my peers have already retired (and stepped up their physical exercise with the extra hours of leisure and as I intend to) so the former 'craic' at work wouldn't be the same if I returned.
The next few months are chocker with trips planned around the UK (seeing friends, attending gigs and City games and engaging more in one of my pastimes) and next year, if it is safe to do so my net will be casting even further afield and for longer periods.
Retirement for me and for many others means getting involved in more activities (and pleasurable ones) than ever before. No inept management to answer to any more, no frustrating and laborious work processes to endure any longer and no confines of any description (although they were minimal compared to many people's work environments).
So what's the problem I hear you not asking.....
It just feels weird thinking that:
1. One's expertise at work won't ever exercised or sought after again
2. Not working seems like a guilty luxury to this person of working class stock when many people around the world are scratching about for a living
3. I don't feel old and decrepit enough to cease work. (A strange notion for some people but it was a concept that which was familiar to many of our parents)
I have already created a timetable for me to indulge in physical and intellectual tasks every day but am I going to end up typing on here every hour of the day dressed just in a string vest with fried egg stains on it and with my goolies hanging out?
Answers on a post card, please.......
As you eluded to, the impact of retirement upon each of us can be significantly different depending on the working environment we've just left. As one who hardly spent any time in an office for the past 30yrs, retirement seemed no different except I had a lot more time on my hands. The funny thing is, I seem to have all sorts of little, trivial things to keep me busy which I really don't know how I did them before. I go to the gym 3 times a week, just an hour, and then the missus & I go out for a coffee. This f****ng covid thing hasn't helped, but I'd recommend taking a few short breaks - out of school hols time- and search out a few local walks. There are loads around here. Don't 'take up a hobby' just for the sake of it, though.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
I retired in 2012,Went straight to working 3 days a week in a community centre/food bank.I hung my boots up aged 69 a weeks ago.
Getting itchy feet already.It's the winter is the worse.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Great thread .
TBG - good luck with your retirement, looks like you have it sussed.
Long way to go for me, but it’s still a massive worry. I do long hours and it’s intense, I wonder how I will cope with it just stopping.
I can’t sit still or shut off now !
Nice to read other people’s views on it too and I know so many ( some very close to me) who didn’t get the chance to have that time to themselves. Seems a good idea to plan your time .
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Nice thread, and good luck TBG. Am hoping to jack it in myself fairly soon. I imagine I'll have plenty to keep me busy, but I will only find out when I get there!
Am going back to college part-time to study psychotherapy. It'll be 4 years to a qualification (if I stick it that long) and then I'd need to build up hours to become accredited, but whether or not I go the distance, it will give me a focus for the next while. I have a few other projects that I'm keen to kick off too.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Don’t feel guilty TBG. None of us know how long we have on this earth. Enjoy not being restricted to what you can do because of work. Embrace your freedom.
I will be retiring just before I hit 60 in a couple of years time and cannot wait.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pearcey3
Don’t feel guilty TBG. None of us know how long we have on this earth. Enjoy not being restricted to what you can do because of work. Embrace your freedom.
I will be retiring just before I hit 60 in a couple of years time and cannot wait.
Slacker :hehe:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Keep us informed TBG, although not Onslow style! I’ve set my date in April ‘24, it’s later than I planned some 45 years ago but I don’t have the balls to go earlier, I’ve been working 60 hour weeks for 20 years and the void would be a mental challenge!
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Des Parrot
Keep us informed TBG, although not Onslow style! I’ve set my date in April ‘24, it’s later than I planned some 45 years ago but I don’t have the balls to go earlier, I’ve been working 60 hour weeks for 20 years and the void would be a mental challenge!
I can't keep you informed as two of the three major things that will occupy me I can't mention - after seemingly boring people to death on the chosen subjects. Let's just say that I will be ultra-mobile when circumstances permit.........
On the other hand, you need to get some in before the Grim Reaper comes a'calling...........
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
I can't keep you informed as two of the three major things that will occupy me I can't mention - after seemingly boring people to death on the chosen subjects. Let's just say that I will be ultra-mobile when circumstances permit.........
On the other hand, you need to get some in before the Grim Reaper comes a'calling...........
I cant remember whether youd visited every European country or not, but I quite enjoy your travellers tales.
Which continent is next?
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
The Bloop
I cant remember whether youd visited every European country or not, but I quite enjoy your travellers tales.
Which continent is next?
I'll keep schtum for now but thanks for your kind words :-)
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Great thread , something I can definitely relate to .
I am 61 in a few days time have been running my own business since I was 30 years old .
The business has done ok and a few months ago I decided that if I didnt sell the business, I would carry on working
till they put me in the box . So I was going to sell...
After making this decision , getting the company valued and working out my options ... I decided ...NOT to sell.
The sale of the company would have given me more money than I would need for my future plans .
I am lucky that I have staff who deal with most things in the day to day running of the business . I am only needed for the financial
decisions and sorting some of the major problems out ( we dont have that many)
And I realised I like going to work , I am lucky that I can go in generally when I want to . As TBG mentioned , I want to still sort the problems out , make the deal , buy and sell , its fun now . Would I feel different if I didnt have that responsibility, I think so . Yes.
Plus of course I have built my vegan burger van which allows me to work weekends as well now. (This is temporary for me )
I should be getting on a plane to Mont Blanc tomorrow for a walking holiday , because it wanders into France it would have meant isolating for 10 days on return. The itinerary was quite intense and I havent been doing as much walking as I would like recently so last week I got up at 5 and headed up to pen y fan at 6 before getting back and going to work late morning . Repeated it on the Saturday up and down in a tad over 2 hours after sitting drinking till the early hours in the Storie Arms car park with my lad , staying in our camper vans . I have had to do a bit of Pilates to stretch my legs out this week :hehe: .
So at 61 I still feel fit as ever , my mind is still active . I have a new larger camper van being built which will allow longer journeys away , start with a month and build it up . This country has so much to offer , Europe fascinates me .
I do think , ah, but wouldn't it be nice not to have the worry about anything ?
For me , no , I would vegetate .
TBG if you ever fancy a pint before or after a game :thumbup:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jimmy the Jock
Great thread , something I can definitely relate to .
I am 61 in a few days time have been running my own business since I was 30 years old .
The business has done ok and a few months ago I decided that if I didnt sell the business, I would carry on working
till they put me in the box . So I was going to sell...
After making this decision , getting the company valued and working out my options ... I decided ...NOT to sell.
The sale of the company would have given me more money than I would need for my future plans .
I am lucky that I have staff who deal with most things in the day to day running of the business . I am only needed for the financial
decisions and sorting some of the major problems out ( we dont have that many)
And I realised I like going to work , I am lucky that I can go in generally when I want to . As TBG mentioned , I want to still sort the problems out , make the deal , buy and sell , its fun now . Would I feel different if I didnt have that responsibility, I think so . Yes.
Plus of course I have built my vegan burger van which allows me to work weekends as well now. (This is temporary for me )
I should be getting on a plane to Mont Blanc tomorrow for a walking holiday , because it wanders into France it would have meant isolating for 10 days on return. The itinerary was quite intense and I havent been doing as much walking as I would like recently so last week I got up at 5 and headed up to pen y fan at 6 before getting back and going to work late morning . Repeated it on the Saturday up and down in a tad over 2 hours after sitting drinking till the early hours in the Storie Arms car park with my lad , staying in our camper vans . I have had to do a bit of Pilates to stretch my legs out this week :hehe: .
So at 61 I still feel fit as ever , my mind is still active . I have a new larger camper van being built which will allow longer journeys away , start with a month and build it up . This country has so much to offer , Europe fascinates me .
I do think , ah, but wouldn't it be nice not to have the worry about anything ?
For me , no , I would vegetate .
TBG if you ever fancy a pint before or after a game :thumbup:
As my usual travelling companion to City games isn't around for the Millwall and Bristol City games it would be good to have a pint before or after a game. Even better if you fancy a decent walk in the hills the following day - as I could stay over in Cardiff in the modest campervan I am experimenting with.:thumbup:
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Taunton Blue Genie
Well, after 48.5 years of solid work and 6 months from State Retirement Age I'm hanging up my pen and cursor this week. I feel far from 'shot/knackered/spent' and I've been looking forward to escape my partly-mundane, sedentary and often frustrating work and replacing it with a myriad of things I enjoy but which I have vowed to shut my trap about on here.
I went part-time four years ago and haven't been into the office since March 2020 so it's not the same as the sudden jolt of going from full-time to fully-retired overnight. Most of my peers have already retired (and stepped up their physical exercise with the extra hours of leisure and as I intend to) so the former 'craic' at work wouldn't be the same if I returned.
The next few months are chocker with trips planned around the UK (seeing friends, attending gigs and City games and engaging more in one of my pastimes) and next year, if it is safe to do so my net will be casting even further afield and for longer periods.
Retirement for me and for many others means getting involved in more activities (and pleasurable ones) than ever before. No inept management to answer to any more, no frustrating and laborious work processes to endure any longer and no confines of any description (although they were minimal compared to many people's work environments).
So what's the problem I hear you not asking.....
It just feels weird thinking that:
1. One's expertise at work won't ever exercised or sought after again
2. Not working seems like a guilty luxury to this person of working class stock when many people around the world are scratching about for a living
3. I don't feel old and decrepit enough to cease work. (A strange notion for some people but it was a concept that which was familiar to many of our parents)
I have already created a timetable for me to indulge in physical and intellectual tasks every day but am I going to end up typing on here every hour of the day dressed just in a string vest with fried egg stains on it and with my goolies hanging out?
Answers on a post card, please.......
Congratulations and good luck mate. Any large-scale change is daunting but you deserve a rest for all those years served.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
This thread shows we're all different. Working was always just a means to getting the money to do the things I really enjoyed doing for me, so I chose to go into semi retirement the first change I got at the age of fifty three even though I knew that financially it would be tough bridging the gap between when the fairly small redundancy package I received had been spent and when I qualified for the state pension.
I've bridged that gap to some extent by working a few hours a week on doing things I enjoy - writing the blog and the occasional book about City (a big thank you to everyone who contributes to the modest income I make from the blog without which I would have really struggled in the last two or three y6ears).
Retirement, or the thought of it, has never been unsettling to me, but I've spoken to enough people for whom it is to be aware that I'm lucky, and probably in a minority, to be like I am.
I can't offer you much advice TBG because I hardly think of myself as someone who has "cracked" retirement so to speak, but I think you're right to target mental as well as physical well being.
Best of luck with your retirement - based on what you've written and the common sense you've posted on here down the years, I'm sure you'll be fine.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
This thread shows we're all different. Working was always just a means to getting the money to do the things I really enjoyed doing for me, so I chose to go into semi retirement the first change I got at the age of fifty three even though I knew that financially it would be tough bridging the gap between when the fairly small redundancy package I received had been spent and when I qualified for the state pension.
I've bridged that gap to some extent by working a few hours a week on doing things I enjoy - writing the blog and the occasional book about City (a big thank you to everyone who contributes to the modest income I make from the blog without which I would have really struggled in the last two or three y6ears).
Retirement, or the thought of it, has never been unsettling to me, but I've spoken to enough people for whom it is to be aware that I'm lucky, and probably in a minority, to be like I am.
I can't offer you much advice TBG because I hardly think of myself as someone who has "cracked" retirement so to speak, but I think you're right to target mental as well as physical well being.
Best of luck with your retirement - based on what you've written and the common sense you've posted on here down the years, I'm sure you'll be fine.
Thanks, Bob. I don't actually need advice as I have so many things to do each and every week - and the number of events and trips I have planned (domestic and otherwise) are legion. Apart from the throwaway line about being on here about typing in my dunghampers I was wistfully reflecting on the transition rather than a problem I actually have with it. The world is my lobster, as they don't say....
Thanks for your kind words, by the way!
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UNDERHILL1927
Congratulations and good luck mate. Any large-scale change is daunting but you deserve a rest for all those years served.
Far from needing a rest I will be putting my energy into activities that are the opposite to sedentary work! Retirement sounds like going out to grass but it's an opportunity to be far more active rather than less.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Well done, your going in all guns blazing and it sounds as if you're still healthy.I'm 63 and now retired and a big change is coming to me next monday as I'm having my lower right leg amputated.I'll be dammed if its gonna stop me but looking at things from a disabled point of view will be an eye opener for a while.
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sneggyblubird
Well done, your going in all guns blazing and it sounds as if you're still healthy.I'm 63 and now retired and a big change is coming to me next monday as I'm having my lower right leg amputated.I'll be dammed if its gonna stop me but looking at things from a disabled point of view will be an eye opener for a while.
Phew, now that is a major transition in life. Good for you in remaining positive. I remember a study a while back about people who had life-changing events such as amputation of a limb, winning the lottery etc - and it found that after the initial effects of the major event subsided somewhat and the individuals got used to their new 'normal' they generally reverted to type regarding their positive or negative outlook that they had beforehand. No doubt that my hazy synopsis doesn't do the study justice but I certainly admire your outlook regarding a very major change in your life. We all know people who didn't even make it to their 60's, of course.
(I hope that my post came over as light-hearted in comparison as my predicament is far from being a problem. Far from it, in fact!)
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Re: Retirement: an unsettling experience