Is retirement like New Year's Eve?

[Nuiloa]

When you retired, did you start out with all sorts of good intentions to change your lifestyle, habits - like New Year's resolutions but longer term.

Did you sustain the changes?

Or, OTOH, did lifestyle changes (if any) just sort of happen as a result of more free time, boredom, desperation, or whatever.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Nui

 

[Alan]

When you retired, did you start out with all sorts of good intentions to change your lifestyle, habits - like New Year's resolutions but longer term.

Did you sustain the changes?

Or, OTOH, did lifestyle changes (if any) just sort of happen as a result of more free time, boredom, desperation, or whatever.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Nui

2 years in, and our lifestyle has changed completely, and in line with all our intentions.

Life is great.

 

[W2R]

For me, retirement has been a lot more relaxing and fun than I had anticipated.

Retirement means oceans and oceans of time. Still, I have not been bored and I have so much left to do. My lifestyle changes have been fun and that has been the motivation for them. I am enjoying the journey, as they say, and doing what I want to with my life.

 

[freebird5825]

My biggest "resolution" was to learn how to relax, i.e. drop the Type A achiever persona and become mellower. Stop and smell the roses, learn how to just sit around and do nothing productive...

Almost 5 years in FIRE, and the best progress I'll give myself is calling myself a Type A minus.

I have done a lot of gardening and plant growing, something I was only able to do minimally pre-FIRE.
I'm also spending more quality time in my house, versus only a few hours at a time and always in a rush. I've decluttered substantially, giving most of the no longer used household items to younger friends who can truly put them to use or as donations to veterans' groups raffles or church rummage sales.
I am doing cosmetic fixes to my house interior for minor issues that went neglected for decades. I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.

 

[easysurfer]

I think of retirement more like Christmas Eve

 

[Moemg]

did lifestyle changes (if any) just sort of happen as a result of more free time, boredom, desperation, or whatever.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Nui

Most of my lifestyle changes just happened slowly . I joined a gym ,lost 22 pounds and met a great group of non working friends . I started trying new recipes and new activities . I travel more at the spur of the moment and my SO & I have gotten more spontaneous in enjoying life . I thought I would get more projects done around the house but I've learned the joy of naps .

 

[harley]

Is retirement like New Year's Eve?

I hope not. I have no desire to have a few drinks and then sleep through it.

 

[Leonidas]

When you retired, did you start out with all sorts of good intentions to change your lifestyle, habits - like New Year's resolutions but longer term.

Did you sustain the changes?

Or, OTOH, did lifestyle changes (if any) just sort of happen as a result of more free time, boredom, desperation, or whatever.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Nui

Philip Greenspun throws some cold water on a few retirement dreams here:

Ask a wage slave what he'd like to accomplish. Chances are the response will be something like "I'd start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I'd practice the piano for three hours. I'd become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I'd really learn how to handle a polo pony. I'd learn to fly a helicopter. I'd finish the screenplay that I've been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV."

Why hasn't he accomplished all of those things? "Because I'm chained to this desk 50 hours per week at this horrible [insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.

So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn't have to work? "Absolutely none. If I didn't have the job, I would be out there living the dream."

Suppose that the guy cashes in his investments and does retire. What do we find? He is waking up at 9:30 am, surfing the Web, sorting out the cable TV bill, watching DVDs, talking about going to the gym, eating Doritos, and maybe accomplishing one of his stated goals.

Retirement forces you to stop thinking that it is your job that holds you back. For most people the depressing truth is that they aren't that organized, disciplined, or motivated.

Early Retirement

Me, I started out with a list of stuff I wanted to accomplish in retirement, as if I had to impress people with how I was using my time. Now, I do what is important to me. And still make it to the gym for a couple of hours most every day except Sunday but Brad Pitt ain't got nothing to worry about, yet.

 

[W2R]

Me, I started out with a list of stuff I wanted to accomplish in retirement, as if I had to impress people with how I was using my time. Now, I do what is important to me. And still make it to the gym for a couple of hours most every day except Sunday

+1 (except that we only go to the gym 3 days/week, though faithfully)

It's still all fun. I still have a list of a couple of dozen interesting endeavors that I haven't even touched...

 

[brewer12345]

I feel sorry for anyone who cannot figure out what to do with their time in retirement. You are staring at the greatest gift of a lifetime: unimited free time. Even if you spent your whole day masturbating, it would be more fulfilling than the whole day in the gray fabric-lined cube typing away (or worse: in meetings).

As Machine Gun Kelly said: "Its an instrument: play it."

 

[scrabbler1]

My day-to-day lifestyle did not chance much after I retired nearly 3 years ago (10/31/2008) because I had been working only 2 days a week for 17 months. I went from having 5 days off to 7 days off, not a big change. I was able to go out on Tuesday night which I had rarely been able to do before because I almost always worked on Tuesdays, a considerable improvement. Being able to more easily schedule my volunteer work was helpful as well.

Instead, it was in 2001 switching from working full-time to working part-time and mostly from home which had the biggest change in my everyday life. I was able to begin my volunteer work and regain my personal life with the added time. Being able to do my local errands midday during the week instead of mostly on weekends was a huge improvement, too. [I would eventually lose the telecommute part of the deal and have to work 3 days aweek until I cut it to 2 days in 2007.]

 

[rescueme]

Is retirement like New Year's Eve?

Upon reflection, it was more like Thanksgiving afternoon - with a full tummy, the dishes (w*rk) washed, watching TV and falling asleep.

When I retired, I had been w*rking for over 45 years - some in non-paid (e.g. family business), followed by later well-paid, but high stress level j*bs caused not only by responsibility, but also much travel, both CONUS and international which kept me away from home/family for periods of time.

In the 4.5 years since the day I retired, the word that would describe my life today is "contentment".

I did not advance to retirement by planning a lot of post-retirement planned activities, but my goal was to move away from those many years that were not my own; that is I was under somebody else's control of my time - my life.

BTW, at my last place of employment, I wor*ed most New Year's eve's. No party at all .

Today, life is good...

 

[travelover]

When you retired, did you start out with all sorts of good intentions to change your lifestyle, habits..........Nui

Lifestyle? Yes. No more a$$hole boss, inane meetings, pointless performance reviews, Sunday night call ins, last minute travel, needless stress.

Habits? No, I'm still a lazy bum, but now it is at my own pace.

 

[Onward]

I'm a year and a half in, and my days are very different from what I had planned. I had planned for 6 mos travel each year, but so far I have mostly stayed at home and immersed myself in martial arts. I consider myself lucky to have been able to drift in that completely unexpected direction.

As far as holidays, that's easy: ER is most like the first day of summer vacation. The same feeling of limitless freedom and anticipation.

 

[Blackwoodt]

I feel sorry for anyone who cannot figure out what to do with their time in retirement. You are staring at the greatest gift of a lifetime: unimited free time.

+1

I’ve announced my retirement date, and I’m still amazed at the number of people that come up to me and ask what I’m going to do with all of my free time. They either tell you, or you can see it in their faces, they have no clue how they would fill their days. I feel very sorry for them, they must not have any friends, family, hobbies, or desire to travel.

 

[bbbamI]

Is retirement like New Year's Eve?

I hope not. I have no desire to have a few drinks and then sleep through it.

....that's the way it works for me now.

However in my younger years I can compare New Year's Eve with retirement. I danced, ran around acting like a fool and had a few bevs.

Afterwards I threw up a little.

 

[Ronstar]

Not much like my version of New Years Eve - I sleep through the beginning of the year with no resolutions.

I went from 5 to 4 to 3 and now to 2 work days a week so I haven't noticed a drastic lifestyle change. Exercise early every morning, Home and hobby projects the rest of the day, tv & computer at night. Travel every month or 2. I'm having a problem getting my project list whittled down, and now I realize that I'll have no problem keeping busy in full retirement.