Thinking I might retire on 12/1!

[nswef]

Frugal one I understand your need to just do what you want in retirement. When your job/career involved your heart and soul, retirement is to recover that heart and soul.

[frugal-one]

I didn't perceive it all that way. He was replying to the quotation he included. That quote made it sound like retirement must include volunteering. I concur with Frugal-one. I too am in a helping profession-giving 110% every working hour is mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting.

I don't think volunteering should be an expectation of anyone in retirement. It is awesome that the opportunity is there for everyone who wants it. I see myself volunteering at something at some point, but for me? I'm taking a long bit of "time off" before i even consider it. I have a list longer than my arm of activities I want to do when I stop paid employment.

This is what I meant. It is NOT sad if we choose to do what we want!

[frugal-one]

I struggle with this volunteer concept. On the one hand, you all are right....you do have to take personal time. But I see how organizations which rely on volunteers can suffer due to the lack of willing participants. Volunteer fire departments stand out as a prime example to me.

While I was working I managed to squeeze in 10 years of coaching baseball, a deacon in a local church, a lay minister who visited grieving people and a scout leader.

Now that I am retired and living in a condo community, I have the board of directors trying to shame me into serving as volunteer maintenance director. I flat out told them to go pound salt. My phone doesn’t get answered ...everything goes to voicemail. I don’t answer to anyone, don’t get compensated so am not beholding to anyone’s sense of control and I don’t particularly enjoy interacting with other humans unless it is on my terms.

I don’t think they believe me when I tell them that I have little patience to deal with problems, have a temper that suffers fools up to a point but snaps like a hair trigger. In other words, I feel I’ve done more than my share. Don’t poke sticks at the sleeping bear.

YES!!!!!

[ApatheticNoMore]

I don't think anyone has to volunteer. I do find a purely self-centered existence without any real appeal, seems rather empty to me, but it doesn't mean I think I can save everyone all the time. I'd consider getting involved in volunteering or other community things if and when I want to to be far more likely to lead to doing interesting things than much else I could do. I might just spend a lot of time volunteering at the nature center, my mom does that, when she feels like, no stress, no pressure.

[SteveinMN]

Well William, you bring up jobs that must be done such as Firefighters and condo maintenance. It is ia tricky thing to base Must Do jobs on the back of a volunteer.

IMHO, basing "must do" jobs on volunteers is a way of saying "this really isn't all that important". If it's critical, it's worth paying for. Or worth accepting the consequences of assigning the responsibility to someone who does not have that task as his/her first priority. No offense to anyone; sometimes volunteers know much more about how to do something than someone paid to do it. But no one looks for a "volunteer surgeon".

Frugal one I understand your need to just do what you want in retirement. When your job/career involved your heart and soul, retirement is to recover that heart and soul.

When (social worker) DH took her leave of absence, the first thing she wanted to do was nothing. No appointments to meet friends, no plans made more than a week in advance (unless they included grandkids and even then the plans could not be elaborate). After a couple of weeks, she felt recharged enough to start arranging for drinks with friends or to go to social events. It's been a few weeks back at work and she's still feeling really good about her job.

There may be a change of heart about volunteering after several months of retirement. But there does not have to be.

DH has told me (more than once) that, until she retires, I'm doing the volunteering for both of us. (I probably spend 20+ hours a month on volunteer activities.)

[Teacher Terry]

When I first retired I volunteered at the Humane Society, took 3 friends that were either sick or disabled to all their appointments, errands, etc. I too spent a lifetime in the helping professions. And after 4 years I was burned out. I quit my volunteer work, 2 of my friends died and the third would not do anything to help herself. There is a bus service that would pick her up at the front door since she uses a wheelchair but she won't consider anything like that. She has another friend that is much closer then we are who helps her a lot. But this couple work f.t. and have kids. She too thinks my friend should do more things for herself but won't quit enabling. So I totally dropped out of the picture for 8 months. Now about twice a week I bring her lunch and visit for a few hours and that is it.

[ApatheticNoMore]

IMHO, basing "must do" jobs on volunteers is a way of saying "this really isn't all that important". If it's critical, it's worth paying for.

yes although working people in helping professions 50 hour week or more is equally ridiculous (if they are self-employed and choose that oh well, they must love their work, but I mean employees). Or going into a helping profession just seems like a way to be the world's biggest sucker.

[JaneV2.0]

If you can't do what you want in retirement (even if that means lying in a hammock in the backyard and watching clouds roll by), when can you? Next life?

Don't cry for me because I'm not doing what you would choose to do.

ETA: After 30-plus years of meeting someone else's expectations of me, I'll be damned if I'll sign up for more. (And I fully realize how lucky I am that it wasn't longer.)

[frugal-one]

If you can't do what you want in retirement (even if that means lying in a hammock in the backyard and watching clouds roll by), when can you? Next life?

Don't cry for me because I'm not doing what you would choose to do.

ETA: After 30-plus years of meeting someone else's expectations of me, I'll be damned if I'll sign up for more. (And I fully realize how lucky I am that it wasn't longer.)

DITTO!!!!

[SteveinMN]

yes although working people in helping professions 50 hour week or more is equally ridiculous

Didn't say it wasn't. FTM routinely working (salaried) people in other professions 50 hours or more every week (aka "management overtime" aka "we don't want to pay to staff properly") is ridiculous, too. So long as people are willing to work for free, though, there will be others willing to exploit that. Occasional projects that require OT? No problem. Job can't possibly get done in less than 50 hours a week every week? Management is being overpaid.

I'm all for doing what one wants in retirement. Volunteer or not. Recharge your batteries for a year or two or dive right in. Whatever. I'm just against guilting people into performing critical work for nothing. Doesn't matter to me whether that takes place during one's career or afterward.