I never understood the people who retire and find another job to "stay busy." I've had people say to me "you should do that when you retire" referring to another job and I reply, that's not retiring, that's finding another job. When I retire, I aint workin for someone else again.
I used to be the guy you gave an urgent job to even though I was too busy already. I got things done. Before I retired I ran a handyman service repairing condos. Prior to 2010 I used to book $350 to $400 a day with my own hands while supervising three or more others and doing the administration. Now, when I put a dollar value to what I accomplish in a day, It's hard to total $200, and given inflation, that's a very minor amount. The list of things I need to do keeps getting longer and longer. I find it a bit frustrating. I've heard the same thing from others on here.
That has always been my definition of a successful person. Doesn't matter how much money you made, what you accomplished or what "position" you reached in the organization. You were happy with the way you spent your working days.
And those jobs are always something with low/no benefits and pay less than the job they retired from. They do tend to be lower stress jobs, but you're still a slave to someone else's schedule. I've never had a problem staying busy with things I want to do and don't understand people who can't. I can somewhat understand the argument that they do it to stay busy since so many people have no hobbies but the one that I can't understand at all is the "to have purpose". Unless you're doing something that truly helps other people I don't understand the word "purpose". Sitting in a cube making money for investors isn't a "purpose".
Exactly my thought. I'll find more purpose pulling weeds, lol
My wife initially retired first. She couldn't handle being home with nothing to do when I was at work and kids were gone.
I only know one guy who died shortly after retirement. In his case, going to work was the only thing keeping him sober for a significant chunk of his life. He only lasted a few months.
When I had my 6 week retirement before I went back to work part-time, my wife got the groceries since she was in town. During that 6 weeks, I think I only went into town twice. I had plenty to keep me busy at home. Now my wife and I get off work at the same time so we get the groceries or anything else we need to get in town. It saves trips into town. We are both just working part-time at gravy jobs.
I just don't understand how people can become bored in retirement? I'm going fishing more, plan on playing at least 9 holes of golf at the ass crack of dawn on days I am not fishing, then working on the property all day. Sh*t, I'll mow every day if I want to. lol
Some people just can't sit still. My wife is one of them. She's "retired" several times, finds it nice at first but after a few months she gets antsy. Never was one who had a lot of hobbies, etc. She doesn't want to work fulltime anymore, but 10-15 hr/wk tends to keep her in balance.
The reason I retired a little earlier than originally planned was that a good friend of my mom and dad was an engineer who worked for two extra years in order to finish a very large project for the company. He had a retirement lunch on a Friday afternoon and died at the curling rink on Saturday morning.
Ouch!
