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I wonder if there's a big difference in concerns about busyness if one is "one" or "we." I know as a "one" that I worry about not having enough to do with other people, not knowing people where there is mutual enjoyment. Not activity, but connection.
One can be busy with a variety of things, ranging from the trivial just in order to pass time to the deeply meaningful and gratifying. And of course what is meaningful for one person can be meaningless to another. And one can be busy to various extents, from frenzied non-stop activities to total couch-potato living.
Most of us find a level which suits us. When I was working I also had other outside activities and I was lucky to be able to sleep in one day a week. Now I can sleep in three to four days a week. That would be inadequate for some (a few posters claim to have literally destroyed the alarm clock) but it suits me perfectly. I have the freedom that I could arrange my life to be able to sleep in seven days a week, but that is not my goal and that would not make me happy.
I wonder if there's a big difference in concerns about busyness if one is "one" or "we." I know as a "one" that I worry about not having enough to do with other people, not knowing people where there is mutual enjoyment. Not activity, but connection.
Finding connections can be an enduring problem and enduring task for older people. There are a multitude of recent articles in newspapers, magazines, websites, etc exploring the issue of loneliness among older people. Also isolation. And being single can accentuate that circumstance. The percentage of older people facing either loneliness or isolation is not small.
Older people in Great Britain (and other countries, of course) sometimes have the same problems. I've seen recent articles on this topic in Great Britain newspapers The Guardian and The Independent. Great Britain has started a national campaign to try to eradicate isolation among older people.
Finding meaningful connections can be a task for all age groups, and a life-long goal, in first finding them, and then replacing them when some dissolve and fall by the wayside.
I agree that being married or having a partner can help assuage.
Last edited by matisse12; 04-21-2017 at 01:05 AM..
After retiring, how do you handle all that free time you now have? What do you do to stay busy? Since every day is just kinda like the weekend for a retiree, isn't there an inclination to let the body and mind slide just a little bit? Just wondering....
Does anyone miss the stimulation (mental and physical) of being employed and being around others?
After teaching for 31 years to 600+ students each year, (music teacher), I love retirement so much, where do I start?
We're in a new area so getting to know where to go and what to do is an activity in itself. But, after one year living here we've met new friends and can get together with them at least 2X a week, if we don't have something else that comes up. We plan trips and travel, visit family, play pickle ball (started in the fall), plant gardens, tend to the yard, study the local birds and try to attract them, sing in a local community choir, read, ride bicycles, go to the beach, play pinochle and bunco with the neighbors.... As is often said, when did I find the time to work?
On top of all that, now I have the time to get eight hours of sleep so I'm well rested. While working, I didn't have the time to cook like I would have wanted to, now I do. I miss the students and my colleagues, but those with whom I really connected, still keep in touch. In fact, some have come to visit for a day or two. But building a strong choral program took so much focus and energy, I'm happy to have that chapter over. There's so much of life to explore beyond what I did for over 30 years. I'm looking forward, not backward.
Retired six months and bored to death. I think I'm becoming very depressed because I am losing the desire for just about everything. All I do is sit around or putter about the yard looking for something to do. I'm not sure what I thought retirement would be,but it wasn't this. Heck, I don't even care to go fishing and I moved to Florida so I could fish!
I retired from a super fast paced and high stress corporate job, and now I don't know what to do with myself. I've realized that the stress of the job was like a drug to me, I thrived on it.
I moved 1200 miles because that's what we had always planned to do. My new neighbors are very unfriendly and most of them work anyway.
Just never anticipated this. Hope you fare better.
This type of situation is exactly why we moved to a new development. When everyone builds and moves to a new location, people are happy to reach out and make friends. Long ago we moved to an established neighborhood. Most neighbors were much older than I, and they had their circle of friends. I just couldn't relate to their season of life and I found it difficult to make friends. I always advise friends who are looking to relocate, to find either a new development or at least a 1-2 year old one and buy a house for sale there. I find it's much easier to make friends and learn new tips about the community. JMO
This type of situation is exactly why we moved to a new development. When everyone builds and moves to a new location, people are happy to reach out and make friends. Long ago we moved to an established neighborhood. Most neighbors were much older than I, and they had their circle of friends. I just couldn't relate to their season of life and I found it difficult to make friends. I always advise friends who are looking to relocate, to find either a new development or at least a 1-2 year old one and buy a house for sale there. I find it's much easier to make friends and learn new tips about the community. JMO
good advice and good environment for meeting people! but it doesn't apply to a large percentage of retirees who 'age in place' in their homes or who do not move or who have varying circumstances that do not involve moving to a 'new development'.
or looking at one's spouse and earlier at one's children and saying to oneself "who are these people??" !!!
or "who is this person?"!!
or "how did I get involved with these people?"!
I've read that this happens to middle-aged people.
I find myself doing this now but towards my siblings and their kids. And not all the siblings, just the females and their daughters. I think what the heck do you do the things you do!
I have to bite my tongue and I am not always successful.
I don't even feel that way towards my roommate of 20+ years. And he can be a pain, but I understand why he is the way he is.
Think I need to sit down with a pad and pen and interrogate my female relatives
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