"Semi-Retired" I Guess, and Bored

[ApatheticNoMore]

I think I might find myself feeling completely worthless to the world in retirement. But work provides the profoundest deepest sense of meaning? Well no, no, no, it definitely does not. But it is something. I could have really used more time when I was young and wasting it all on work, but I'm not so sure I will even want it when I am old. Well that's would be a bitter irony wouldn't it? I'm not at all retired.

[Rogar]

I have a book on my to read shelf called, "How to Do Nothing". I think it has been popular on the NYT best seller list. I haven't had time to read it yet, but will get to it.

There are some online courses on mindfulness that allow a person to occupy some expendable brain space, if a person is into such a thing. I subscribe to a Sam Harris series, but it's not free.

[iris lilies]

I have a book on my to read shelf called, "How to Do Nothing". I think it has been popular on the NYT best seller list. I haven't had time to read it yet, but will get to it.

There are some online courses on mindfulness that allow a person to occupy some expendable brain space, if a person is into such a thing. I subscribe to a Sam Harris series, but it's not free.

I listen to Sam Harris sometimes. He offers the first 10 to 15 minutes of his podcast for free. I just watched him a couple days ago on Lex Friedman‘s podcast on YouTube. He will also show up on Rogan now and then and on Jordan Peterson. Those were his buddies from the dark web days, but they all went their separate ways. Sam Harris gets absolutely apoplectic about Donald Trump being President again.

[herbgeek]

I've been retired almost 4 years now, and haven't fully found my groove. I had been planning on getting out of the workforce earlier than typical since discovering Your Money or Your Life, so it wasn't like I hadn't thought about what I'd do all day.

The first 6 months I signed up fo every class and activity I could find locally, and that was fun. I also got the gardens I'd often neglected back in shape which was a physical challenge for a few months. Then my Dad got cancer and died pretty quickly, leaving my Mom with dementia behind. So there were weekly visits, and grocery shopping, and food prep every week until she had deteriorated to a scary point, and we had to put her in assisted living. Meanwhile the pandemic happened, which meant all the activities I was signed up for came to a halt.

Even though I'm an serious introvert, the pandemic was mentally difficult for me. There's a difference between choosing to stay home and having to stay home.

I miss working with tools and techology, so I've volunteered to handle the website for a Over 50 women's group I'm a member of. Its not regular enough, or challenging enough now that I've learned the web tools but it helps to scratch that itch a bit. I joined a book club recently, even though I always saw myself as not a book club person (I read mostly non fiction/self help stuff). Once a year or so I take a Coursera that is completely out of my element (this year its an introduction to classical music, last year was neurobiology). I joined a discussion group at my senior center, as well as exercise classes. I joined a "learning in retirement" program at a local community college which has members presenting various topics for one hour talks- yesterday the morning session was a ghost hunter, and the afternoon session was a local person who started a distillery.

I found that retirement takes more work than I imagined. I have to spend a lot of time finding things to do. I'm trying to find more "series" things like my learning in retirement program and not just one off classes. I still don't have a good social network, so I do most of my stuff solo. I have difficulty making friends, so I'm hoping doing more "series" things will help, where you see the same people repeatedly. Winter's are harder- both to find activities and to fight my natural hibernation instincts. In the summer, in addition to all the gardening, spouse and I will drive around and look at touristy places, picnic, and go for hikes/bike rides.

Sometimes I miss working. The actual work part, not the sitting in meetings and dealing with politics part. I like figuring out how software works. But tech companies tend to be all consuming - unless you have a specific in demand skill , part time is really not an option (and I don't). I really like having the flexibility of sitting outside with a cup of coffee on a gorgeous morning and just hanging with the birds, and I wouldn't want to give that up. So occasional boredom is the "cost" for this, still a good trade off IMO.

[Rogar]

I listen to Sam Harris sometimes.

Sam has a regular free podcast, "Making Sense", with discussions on contemporary topics and usually about an hour long. He has a for pay series with extended versions of these discussions. And also a for pay series called Waking Up, which is a mindfulness series and has hours and hours of exercises and discussions, but no politics.

[iris lilies]

I've been retired almost 4 years now, and haven't fully found my groove. I had been planning on getting out of the workforce earlier than typical since discovering Your Money or Your Life, so it wasn't like I hadn't thought about what I'd do all day.

The first 6 months I signed up fo every class and activity I could find locally, and that was fun. I also got the gardens I'd often neglected back in shape which was a physical challenge for a few months. Then my Dad got cancer and died pretty quickly, leaving my Mom with dementia behind. So there were weekly visits, and grocery shopping, and food prep every week until she had deteriorated to a scary point, and we had to put her in assisted living. Meanwhile the pandemic happened, which meant all the activities I was signed up for came to a halt.

Even though I'm an serious introvert, the pandemic was mentally difficult for me. There's a difference between choosing to stay home and having to stay home.

I miss working with tools and techology, so I've volunteered to handle the website for a Over 50 women's group I'm a member of. Its not regular enough, or challenging enough now that I've learned the web tools but it helps to scratch that itch a bit. I joined a book club recently, even though I always saw myself as not a book club person (I read mostly non fiction/self help stuff). Once a year or so I take a Coursera that is completely out of my element (this year its an introduction to classical music, last year was neurobiology). I joined a discussion group at my senior center, as well as exercise classes. I joined a "learning in retirement" program at a local community college which has members presenting various topics for one hour talks- yesterday the morning session was a ghost hunter, and the afternoon session was a local person who started a distillery.

I found that retirement takes more work than I imagined. I have to spend a lot of time finding things to do. I'm trying to find more "series" things like my learning in retirement program and not just one off classes. I still don't have a good social network, so I do most of my stuff solo. I have difficulty making friends, so I'm hoping doing more "series" things will help, where you see the same people repeatedly. Winter's are harder- both to find activities and to fight my natural hibernation instincts. In the summer, in addition to all the gardening, spouse and I will drive around and look at touristy places, picnic, and go for hikes/bike rides.

Sometimes I miss working. The actual work part, not the sitting in meetings and dealing with politics part. I like figuring out how software works. But tech companies tend to be all consuming - unless you have a specific in demand skill , part time is really not an option (and I don't). I really like having the flexibility of sitting outside with a cup of coffee on a gorgeous morning and just hanging with the birds, and I wouldn't want to give that up. So occasional boredom is the "cost" for this, still a good trade off IMO.

four years is a long time! I hope you get to where you want to be, feeling at ease with retirement.

For us we were already involved in so many gardening activities before retirement that we didn’t join many new ones, although I did start National Garden Club membership and judges training, so that is now eating up tons of time. But it’s all under the same umbrella of “gardening. “

Plant societies and garden clubs are counseling each other to look to newly retired people for Membership. They are often looking for opportunities for involvement. I saw this recently in the Hermann garden club with two new people besides us, both newly retired, both newly moved to Hermann which is a nice little retirement town.

[pinkytoe]

98% of the members of the gardening club I joined here are retired women.

[iris lilies]

98% of the members of the gardening club I joined are female and most I suspect are fairly well off.

our Hermann garden club is 95% female. DH is one of the male members.

they are holding as their main fundraiser this year something we did for years in our old neighborhood: sale of antique and vintage collectibles. Only they’re afraid they won’t get enough donations from the garden club members so they’re going out and buying things. I see that as risky.

It’s too bad, but we off loaded all of our crap in exactly this kind of sale in recent years so we don’t have anything to donate. We will work the day of the sale, and then give a contribution and we are done. It’s always possible there will be something at the sale that I want to buy.

and, just like our neighborhood association in our old neighborhood, the Hermann garden club has its garden tour the first weekend of June. While that’s a lovely time for gardens in general, for my gardens it’s bad timing because all the iris are gone and the lilies are not in bloom yet.

[SiouzQ.]

Thank you everyone for your input/suggestions. Food for thought. I should clarify though - I have not actually retired, in that I am not drawing social security or from my IRA. It's mainly that my schedule these days makes it feel like what it would be like to be semi-retired. I do have a monthly income that I need to maintain in order to pay my portion of the bills. My income varies depending on how much jewelry I sell each month from my three galleries, plus my few days a week gallery-sitting. Even though I am much more financially stable than I ever have been my entire adult life due to getting remarried, we keep our money separate. Mentally I have to have my own income stream coming in.

I think working three days a week is just about perfect. Then I have a day to run around and do the household errands, plus two days in the studio and then Saturday to hang out with my husband and do stuff. I feel like at this point I am a bit commitment-phobic about any serious volunteer work except local one-time things that come up.

One thing that I have always been meaning to do when I moved to New Mexico is to learn Spanish. To live here one gets quite the immersion every where you go, plus we have been streaming a few shows lately where the the dialogue is in Spanish and we have the English subtitles underneath. I have been picking up a lot lately, and I look up a lot of phrases I hear. Maybe I'll start doing Spanish Duo-Lingo classes. I could also get a language book to take to work, though as it gets warmer and the tourists start coming back (HOPEFULLY) I won't be so bored there looking for ways to pass the time.

[rosarugosa]

Herbgeek: I wish you lived closer; I think we could be friends.

I have been retired for almost 5.5 years, and I am honestly never, ever bored. At this point, I spend a lot of time at the pottery studio and I wish I could spend more, but I wasn't bored even before pottery, which I only discovered about a year ago.
I've been thinking about what occupies my days...
Life's little tasks - cat care, washing dishes, house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, errands
Administrative crap - phone calls, scheduling appointments (I handle for me, DH and Mom)
Home projects - there are always things to be done around here and I usually have a project or two going
New-age Rosa - I meditate every day (only 10 minutes or so) and have been trying to expand my yoga from once a week since I'm currently doing a 30 day thing with online "Yoga with Adriene." I'm think I'll end up with a 3-day per week regimen, or something like that. I don't particularly love yoga, and I roll my eyes at the woo-woo chakra stuff, but I think the stretching, deep breathing, and physical activity are good for me.
Reading - I love to read books and I subscribe to several magazines that I read cover to cover
Mom stuff - this is kind of my unpaid part-time job, managing my mother's life as she becomes increasingly unable to do so herself.
Gardening - this will be a thing again now that warmer weather is coming
Walks - we haven't been as good lately about daily walks, but I'm trying to get that going again. I do get my 10,000 steps in every day though.
Pottery - we've been going to the studio 2-3 days a week, and recently I've even been trying some decorative techniques at home, since that doesn't require specialized equipment beyond the underglazes and brushes that I own.
The internet - this undoubtedly sucks up more time than it should, but I learn a lot and accomplish a lot online too, so it's not all about mindless scrolling.