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Retirees- how did you feel, say two to six months or so after retirement?
Relieved and grateful to have my life back after over 30 years of working nights, weekends and holidays as a TV broadcast technician.
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Did you miss the game?
Yes, I miss the excitement of doing live TV a little bit. But not enough to go back.
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Were you super gratified you were done?? Sad? Happy?
Mostly happy, but a little bit sad because I knew I would miss some of my co-workers and the camaraderie we had.
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I'm not sure how I'll feel after a lifetime of challenge, hard work and political head banging. I have an inkling though that I may be quite happy...what say you?
Didn't miss work from day one and going on 2 plus years of still not missing it. Them hiring an idiot for a boss for my last 18 or so months probably contributed to me not missing it. But I think I'd be just as happy not to be working anyway.
The game became fecal matter 10 months before I retired. Before that it was fine, nothing worth hanging on to compared to freedom and relaxation of retirement.
We are all different. My career choice was one of the few excellent choices I made. Super happy to be done with it. Miss the game!?! Ha!! Umm. No
No more Bull pucky. Do it! Worst case scenario, be a consultant. As a hobby. Me? No need for the money or fun. Three months into it and the thought of doing what I did as an annuitant does not interest me.
I hear you; for me, its about staying busy with technology and continued learning but, it does get ridiculous with personalities more and more lately. Thats the number one thing I wont miss- the narcissists, screw them!
2 - 6 months after, felt great... 10 yrs after ... Feel better (still several yrs remaining to get to age 65)
Miss the game ... Absolutely not, NEVER have wished to be back, but paid vacation was nice!
Plenty to do, I most enjoy helping others, and I now have more time to do it. Just spent a month in OZ helping a special needs adult vocational center. Last month doing similar in NZ (is it still winter in USA?... Is this still an election yr? No thanks.... Off to SE Asia next week, see you in OCT... Maybe.... Turn off the tube before I come home.
Retire early, retire often..... Too much fun to do just once!
Cool- sounds like you have an interesting life and outlook!
I am retired 2 years now and am feeling a bit antsy. I was in hi-tech and was very involved in innovation and solving thorny problems. But I was burned out and ready to get out. Now I am not so sure. I read about things going on in the technical areas I was involved in (data and network security) and the competitive juices get going again and I want to be in the mix.
I am sure it is a dilemma for anyone who was competitive in work and loved his/her job. Probably not so much for non-professionals.
I am 64, which complicates returning to the work force.
Its one of my fears too...wanting to be back in the mix. I do have several hobbies that could take up lots of my time when I do retire, so i'm hoping they dull that desire!
Most positive: Now I have time to do whatever I want to do without even thinking about needing to earn an income.
Most negative: I'm having difficulty replacing my work social group with an equally mentally stimulating new group. I am too much of an introvert. I need to do a better job of reaching out.
Retirees- how did you feel, say two to six months or so after retirement? Did you miss the game? Were you super gratified you were done?? Sad? Happy? I'm not sure how I'll feel after a lifetime of challenge, hard work and political head banging. I have an inkling though that I may be quite happy...what say you?
I "retired" in 1993 though I was unaware that this was what was happening. I was laid off as part of a very large cut-back and then had a bad accident just before my final day. I was 55, expected to recover and have a hell of time finding a new job...until my doctor said one day in a puzzled voice, "Where are your disability forms?" Huh?....Oh!....you mean?....surgery in 1998, left me only partially disabled, but certainly unemployable, so along the way my accidental retirement became the real thing.
I had begun working in a brand new hot shot computer center (in the admin) in '75, so I had long been using email, the various predecessors to the present internet, etc.; and, thus, was already into all the technology that became commonplace in the 90's. That has mattered a very great deal.
Work had always been a necessary evil, my social life was fine - I was pretty easy-going. I had done eight years of volunteer work with persons who were diagnosed with AIDS, anywhere from four to thirty hours a week. Over a relatively small period of time all but two of my own long time friends died. My father was long dead, my only sibling died before I was born, I was estranged from my mother and my beloved aunt had had to go to live in a nursing home.
There was no (work) game to miss, and the constant flow of dying and death had (fortunately) to come to an end with my own accident and disabiltiy. My social contacts were very new acquaintances, and not deeply rooted.
Je repars à la zero/ I begin again at zero as Edith Piaf sang.
I was flabbergasted, more like stunned at where I found myself. It was as if someone had stood me on my head and then spun me around like top! And then strangely "zero" began to seem exciting, and then wonderful. My physical body and my income were my only limitations.
My furniture and stuff I gave away to charities and a few neighbors; I bought a ticket to Europe and took off for a new life on a shoe-string budget. My life had gone from being devastated, to denuded to terrific. I never think of my former work life, I am but totally detached from the madness of American political and cultural life, the dead are dead and I am alive...and as much as may be possible (for me) I began a new life - a new style of life - in places I'd not seen, among countries and cultures I didn't know, making new friends. And that quiet, bookish alter ego side of me with interests that few people or no one seemed to share, now got free rein and tons of time to enjoy itself and thrive...and via the internet as it has come to be nowadays is shared with people here, there and everywhere in countries around the world.
There are two times in my life that I think of as seeming endlessly, magically rich and exciting. The first would be my childhood up to about age ten or so in a beautiful small town in a rural area. And the second, and no less awesome (sorry for using that poor battered word), has been retirement. I could slice and dice, and edit all the other eras of my life to make a prettier picture of them; but the first ten years and the years of retirement seem too full of wonder and learning to be improved upon or fictionalized.
The biggest negative to being retired is the amount of work to maintain my house, cars, and acreage with virgin woods. I made myself a promise to stop hiring other people to do these things because I'm very capable of doing it by myself. I made this promise to keep busy and to provide a purpose to the day.
I maintain logs of all the jobs completed and the estimate it would have cost if I hired a "professional" to do it and each year the estimate of savings is $10,000 to $20,000.
The biggest positive to being retired is having the free time to do all the maintenance and my freedom to do want I want when I want and go where I want at any time I want. The freedom in retirement is priceless.
You NEVER again get to look forward to having a 3 day weekend.
The best: you are in charge of your life and can make of it whatever you want.
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