Focus
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2009
- Messages
- 640
I was a little nervous about that, too, especially since everybody at work thought I'd get bored. I made list like you did, a wish list of about two dozen things I always wanted to do or study but hadn't had time for. These ranged from playing piano again, to learning Mexican Spanish, to gardening, to going back to school to get that MBA I always wanted, and more. That list made a wonderful crutch for me and kept me from feeling bored because when I felt adrift (and sometimes I did at first), I knew I could start on my list.
Turned out I really didn't need to start on anything on that list; I just needed to know the list was there for me so I wouldn't panic. I haven't even started the first thing on that list so far during nearly 5 years of retirement.
Glad you shared this, because I have a feeling my experience will be much like yours. I drafted a long list before retiring, and so far I've only done some brainstorming about a couple of items on it.
My guess would be that most intelligent people are capable of entertaining themselves; or at least, I am and I still don't have enough time for everything that comes to mind. I just didn't know this until I retired and had the opportunity to see how things went.
That's my sense too. I believe a truly successful education instills in us the ability to keep learning -- on our own -- the rest of our lives. I'm coming to realize that never does this pay off more than in early retirement.