I am also "failing" at ER. Have been ERed for 1.5 years now and will be returning to work in a couple months.
The first 4 or 5 months of ER were definitely all about getting over my burn-out. Sleeping without an alarm clock; taking long walks; reading books; enjoying hobbies; etc... Then after that I slowly started to feel like something was missing in my psyche. It took me the next 8 months or so to figure out that it was a two-fold problem. First, I was no longer feeling a sense of accomplishment. None of my day-to-day activities amounted to anything as big as the projects I was accomplishing while at work. Second, without the mental exercise that work provided I felt I was getting dumber by the day. I have never had much satisfaction from volunteering so that wasn't going to fill the void. Have others encountered these same feelings?
-LiveWell
Yup, been there, done that.
The first year or so was the euphoria of "never having to work again". Yippee! Every day's a Saturday!
Then I found I just didn't have the interest I thought I would in radio control airplanes, a hobby that I'd enjoyed for almost two decades. One SIL noted that it was a stress reliever because the concentration required to build and fly them drives everything else out of mind. But if the stress is gone, so is the need to drive it out of mind. And I also think I just plateaued with that hobby.
Not wanting to commit to a job, I helped a friend build a full-size airplane for about a year and a half. He did say that without me showing up two or three times a week he probably wouldn't have finished it, and I did learn a lot about airplane-building. Very similar to R/C models, just different materials and a host of FAA regulations to deal with.
So I stumbled across a job nearby doing armed security that pays almost as much as I was making before retirement as a police officer. The commute is a "brutal" 3.4 miles and I ride a motorcycle to and from work if the pavement is dry and temps above 25 F.
After year and a half of that I find that while it's not as exciting as police work, I don't mind it, the hours are 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM so I still don't use an alarm clock, and the extra income allows us to buy some toys/activities that we wouldn't otherwise buy.
For example, I just bought a second digital camera and am learning to use Photoshop Elements 8 software. Neat stuff - I told DW that with Photoshop I can take ten years off her portrait. She likes that!
Best of all, since we don't
need the income, my KMA hat is still firmly intact, which is the case with most of the other security staff there. They're also retired cops and have that "I'll do this for as long as I want but screw with me and I'm outa here" attitude.
Now, this may be seen by others as a variation of the "one more year" syndrome, but for now, and for me, it works.