Depression and Lack of Purpose in FIRE

[IslandFiGirl]

It sounds like you’re finding that all the activities aren’t necessarily that meaningful but that maybe you’re missing the family relationships. Do you have any other family you might consider moving near? Like siblings or cousins? Or any relatives with little kids who could use some childcare help? If not, it might still help to think of other people-oriented things you could incorporate into your life, rather than activity-based stuff. Like you might enjoy sitting in someone’s kitchen more than doing volunteer work. Several family groups in my extended family all moved to the same neighborhood during the pandemic. We needed to be closer.

A lot of people would find my retirement dull but it’s a good routine for me most days. I get up and exercise, eat breakfast, do some dishes or laundry, and then usually have most of the day free to do what feels interesting. Reading, cooking, garden projects, baking bread, meditating, helping someone in the family with something, occasionally a volunteer shift. Overall, it’s fairly slow but peaceful. I’ve never found happiness from a busy schedule. I’ve also needed a lot of time and space to think about how I want to spend my time. The answers change often and there has been some trial and error.

I hope you find some happiness. We’re not following the typical life pattern so it can be hard forging our own path.

I think eventually I could live near my oldest daughter whenever she settles down in a place.  Right now her husband is in grad school, so moving near them right now would be dumb since they won't be there much longer.  In the meantime I have a few good friends in town and my youngest daughter still in high school.  I do think I'd like to be near more family...my parents are gone and the family I do have is in a place I probably wouldn't want to live, so hopefully my kids all end up in the same area.  Wishful thinking, haha!

And I totally agree about not following the typical life pattern making things a bit harder.  I have noticed it's harder for people to relate to me because I don't work and can't say I'm a "fill in the blank" when they ask what I "do".  It confuses me, because other than having no job, I pretty much have the same life as everyone else, right?  I put my pants on the same way everyone else does.  Maybe I'm not comfortable with my retirement status yet and that hinders me, I'm not totally sure.

[IslandFiGirl]

If I remember correctly, I think your job was very stressful, but also meaningful. It may have established a familiarity within you of associating meaningful experience with the adrenaline surge of crisis response. Couple that with divorce, kids and general all round busy life, its not hard to understand how a quiet pace of life could feel flat and without purpose or meaning in contrast.
Instead of looking for a way out of this, could it help to think of this as a transition time? Like a seed in the ground waiting for the soil to warm. Take life a day or two at a time, try not to look backwards, or too far into the future. Journal your feelings for a few minutes, then try to just do the tasks of the day as they need to be done.
I personally find a lot of fulfillment in gardening now, but it took me several years to process the events  which led up to and resulted in retiring and find a new sense of purpose.
Best wishes.

Thank you for the best wishes.  I think there is a touch of a lack of feeling important.  I was a 911 dispatcher (and the manager for the last several years) and I remember at times realizing what a big deal that job was, most days I didn't think about it at all, but some days I remember feeling like...wow, all the years of experience really made it so I could help that person and that was really fulfilling.  I can't say I miss the job, but there was some satisfaction in answering the "what do you do" question with my job title and having people say hey, that's a really difficult job, I don't know how you do it.  Compare that to my answer to the "what do you do" question now...answer...."nothing" and it just isn't the same, LOL.  Of course I answer nothing just to be funny, but you know what I mean.  :)

[boarder42]

It sounds like you’re finding that all the activities aren’t necessarily that meaningful but that maybe you’re missing the family relationships. Do you have any other family you might consider moving near? Like siblings or cousins? Or any relatives with little kids who could use some childcare help? If not, it might still help to think of other people-oriented things you could incorporate into your life, rather than activity-based stuff. Like you might enjoy sitting in someone’s kitchen more than doing volunteer work. Several family groups in my extended family all moved to the same neighborhood during the pandemic. We needed to be closer.

A lot of people would find my retirement dull but it’s a good routine for me most days. I get up and exercise, eat breakfast, do some dishes or laundry, and then usually have most of the day free to do what feels interesting. Reading, cooking, garden projects, baking bread, meditating, helping someone in the family with something, occasionally a volunteer shift. Overall, it’s fairly slow but peaceful. I’ve never found happiness from a busy schedule. I’ve also needed a lot of time and space to think about how I want to spend my time. The answers change often and there has been some trial and error.

I hope you find some happiness. We’re not following the typical life pattern so it can be hard forging our own path.

I think eventually I could live near my oldest daughter whenever she settles down in a place.  Right now her husband is in grad school, so moving near them right now would be dumb since they won't be there much longer.  In the meantime I have a few good friends in town and my youngest daughter still in high school.  I do think I'd like to be near more family...my parents are gone and the family I do have is in a place I probably wouldn't want to live, so hopefully my kids all end up in the same area.  Wishful thinking, haha!

And I totally agree about not following the typical life pattern making things a bit harder.  I have noticed it's harder for people to relate to me because I don't work and can't say I'm a "fill in the blank" when they ask what I "do".  It confuses me, because other than having no job, I pretty much have the same life as everyone else, right?  I put my pants on the same way everyone else does.  Maybe I'm not comfortable with my retirement status yet and that hinders me, I'm not totally sure.

I'm in money money management.  maybe they ask questions about what they should do and you can give them some great resources. 

[IslandFiGirl]

Okay, so let's cover a bit of ground here first.

Let's talk depression vs suffering.

Depression and suffering can manifest the exact same way: feeling hopeless, inability to enjoy things, inability to feel at peace with life, etc, etc.

The major difference is that suffering is a normal, reasonable, and proportional response to a negative event in your life. It can be even more severe than clinical depression. For example, if someone loses a child, that can result in a totally proportional level of suffering that is totally unmanageable and unbearable.
But it's NOT depression.

Life events can't cause depression, but they can trigger it. So mourning can trigger a depression and that person then doesn't recover from the mourning on a normal timeline.

Depression is an *abnormal* state of suffering that is not or no longer reasonable or proportional to the events happening in the person's life.

Both can require similar treatment, but the distinction is VERY important, because the treatment is meaningfully different.

For suffering, the treatment can require medication, but is primarily about processing the traumatic/negative experiences to make sure that they don't create maladaptive patterns of thoughts and behaviours. When someone experiences something difficult, a loss, a major change, abuse, etc, it can either entrench itself and make the person overall less healthy, or it can be processed effectively and make the person more resilient.

The purpose of treatment is to get the person back to a health state where they can return to their normal, healthy function in life.

Depression is a totally different creature. Depression makes it impossible to be healthy. It's not just a matter of processing things, the brain will simply not allow the person to be able to enjoy their life because they're not capable of a proportionate, normal response to things.

Happy feelings don't last as long as they should, safety never totally feels safe, life just lacks that feeling of being okay.

Now to OP, do you have a proportionate suffering response to major life changes or has it evolved into a mild depression? It's impossible for an internet stranger to say, but as someone with A LOT of knowledge on suffering, I have a strong suspicion it could be that you've had mild depression triggered.

There's nothing actually wrong with your life and you are struggling to find activities and things to *make* your life feel okay. To me, it doesn't sound like that's working or that it's going to work. I don't know that you can solve this problem with "logic" if there's a fundamental basis for you not feeling comfortable and happy in your life.

Let me illustrate with a counter example so you can see what I mean.

I'm in my late 30s, I studied for over a decade for my dream job, I LOVED my dream job, but then got extremely ill, diagnosed with a rare, very disabling disease, and had to give up my dream job, that I LOVED, after only working for 7 years.

I suffered immensely with severe mourning, loss of identity, loss of function, loss of my ability to walk comfortably, and I am in constant, and I mean *constant* pain. I, like you, struggle constantly with figuring out what to do with myself because I physically can't do most things, not consistently. So my life is very limited in many ways.

So I have all of the reasons in the world to be dissatisfied with my life, and yet, I'm quite happy, peaceful, and very at ease with my life. I have rough days, but for the most part, I'm very satisfied.

I didn't always feel this way, I've gone through a lot of therapy to make sure that my suffering was processed and didn't turn into negativity and toxicity. This also helped prevent it triggering depression, which runs in my family.

The only way for me to really accurately describe my current mental health state despite still experiencing a significant, legitimate amount of profound suffering is that I'm *not depressed*. I don't have a better way to explain it other than that I feel like every negative feeling I have is entirely within reason, totally manageable, and doesn't define my state of being.

I'm explaining my experience to help you put yours in perspective. If you feel about your life like I do, that no matter what is going on, no matter how painful things get, that you are still good, and life is still rich and fulfilling, then you're doing fine and don't need any therapy.

However, it doesn't sound that way, and what's critical is to determine if your negative feelings are entirely in line with their triggers, or if you've been knocked into some degree of depression where you literally can't feel comfortable in your life until you resolve it.

Whatever the case, hobbies, a job, etc, aren't going to solve the problem. Not having a source of purpose doesn't make people feel the way you are feeling, there has to be something maladaptive happening at the same time.

As other people have said, that's not unusual for this stage of life. Many people experience difficulties with mental health during this stage of transition in life. It's common, but that doesn't mean it should be brushed off as normal.

Whatever is going on, there is some degree of a mentally unhealthy process happening, and that needs to be effectively addressed, and not by going back to work or volunteering more.

It's time to stop looking outwards for the answers and start looking inwards.

Your life could be much, much worse and if you were perfectly mentally healthy, you would feel better. So tackle the mental health first, *then* focus on figuring out what your best life looks like at this stage.

This was very helpful, thank you for taking the time to write all of that.  Reading this definitely gives me perspective on what might be going on with me.  I like the idea that it could just be normal that I'm sad that my kids are growing up and moving on, or on the flip side, like you said, I could have some unhealthy processes going on.  I'm really going to think on this and try to understand which it is.  Thanks again!  :)

[IslandFiGirl]

Malcat’s response above is gold…better than gold. I saw her post something similar in another thread recently and it really resonated with me and a situation I’m currently working my way through.

I had one other thought in response to your post and that was around everything that has kept you busy over the past 24+ years. Three kids, a marriage, then raising kids after divorce, a stressful career, loss of parents, etc. Is it possible all of this kept you so busy that you were never able to sit with and process your own feelings and now you do have time, and are facing some difficult feelings? If this is the case, I’d definitely suggest you consider some counseling.

Wishing you the best.

Oh yes, for sure I think I had been too busy to deal with a few things...losing my Dad, who I was very close to, losing my Mom, who I had a really difficult relationship with and definitely the emptying nest...now all I have is time and my feelings leak out of my dang face way too much! 

By the way, love your user name, I love the beach too.  It's cold here, so I want to be at a beach now! 

[Morning Glory]

This is something Malcat said to me when I wondered why I was feeling more depressed and anxious after my family situation started to improve.  When you mentioned leaving your job because of burnout I had to find this quote. I don't know if it will help with the situation but it might feel better to know that someone else is going through something similar.

Also, it's not unusual for mental health to suffer when things are less objectively intense, because when things are really bad, you dissociate to a certain degree and can't feel the damage that's happening. That's why so many people think they can handle so much, but they can't, they're just deferring the processing.

[eyesonthehorizon]

This is something Malcat said to me when I wondered why I was feeling more depressed and anxious after my family situation started to improve.  When you mentioned leaving your job because of burnout I had to find this quote. I don't know if it will help with the situation but it might feel better to know that someone else is going through something similar.

Also, it's not unusual for mental health to suffer when things are less objectively intense, because when things are really bad, you dissociate to a certain degree and can't feel the damage that's happening. That's why so many people think they can handle so much, but they can't, they're just deferring the processing.

Thanks for digging this up; I needed to read that one. My job has been much, much better this year than last, yet I'm struggling much more, & this handily explains why.

Last year was a smear of hazy disbelief punctuated by occasional bewildered crying jags, all coped with by working at a frenzied pace for obscene hours (though that was usually mandatory.) This year the work demand & abuse/ bullshittery's much more moderate, but I wake up most days in a state of doomed misery, then feel all the life & sense crushed out of me by the time I have two hours left in my shift. I no longer have a knife to my metaphorical neck, so I'm actually feeling what the job does to me. (Yikes.)

[Axecleaver]

Empty nest is hard. N=1 but for us, my wife had a much harder time than I did adjusting to it. She took about two years to get comfortable with it. I FIREd in May and just decided to take 20h/week in consulting work, because I enjoy it, not because I really need the money.

Agree with most of the above advice, my contribution is to be kind to yourself and give yourself time to unwind. Consensus is you need a year to adjust to FIRE. Doing FIRE, empty nest, divorce, and parents passing all at once is a lot. I don't think a year of adjustment is unreasonable.

Big Sister might be something to look into.

[snowball]

This is something Malcat said to me when I wondered why I was feeling more depressed and anxious after my family situation started to improve.  When you mentioned leaving your job because of burnout I had to find this quote. I don't know if it will help with the situation but it might feel better to know that someone else is going through something similar.

Also, it's not unusual for mental health to suffer when things are less objectively intense, because when things are really bad, you dissociate to a certain degree and can't feel the damage that's happening. That's why so many people think they can handle so much, but they can't, they're just deferring the processing.

That's really insightful; thanks for finding that quote (and thanks Malcat for sharing your wisdom; I always appreciate your posts :) ).

I have definitely experienced this delayed reaction at various times of my life but haven't quite thought about it in this way, especially not when it comes to work stresses...those are socially constructed as things we are expected to just handle, right?  To compartmentalize, to close the door on when we go home after work, to not allow to have an effect on our real inner lives.  I feel that even when we are spending most of our waking hours at work, the challenges we face there are somehow not supposed to have a real effect on us that causes actual damage that we then need actual time and effort to recover from.  We are supposed to be strong and simply not let this happen.  And even if you're having crying jags after work, well, that's not long-term damage that you'll have to process later, right?  Simply remove the cause, and that'll flip the switch right back to the way you were before.  Yeah.

Probably this all intersects with the traditional refusal to recognize that mental health needs are real + the associated stigmatization of them.  It's wonderful to see how much attitudes around that are changing, but obviously there's a lot of lingering...stuff.

On a more personal note, I have been feeling pretty validated in my burned-out-ness by watching my replacement take on (a scaled down version of) my responsibilities; we've had a few conversations that boil down to wondering how to possibly stay in shouting distance of being on top of everything.  Me: "You can't.  Accept that now."  Replacement:  "...I don't know how you did this* for five years..."  Me: Hahahahaha.  (=shell-shocked laughter sprinkled with a weird combo of excitement at leaving + flashbacks to, ahem, particularly challenging moments of a couple of years ago when I was on the brink of quitting multiple times)

*Honestly, I don't either.  It's much better at work now than it was two years ago, but as Malcat described...I dissociated and deferred the processing for a bunch of what happened then.  I felt I had to;  people were depending on me to keep functioning at a high level, and so I did, come hell or high water.  I don't regret that, but I'm so glad I decided to go ahead and pull the plug now and lay all of this down.  Three more weeks until my last day...and I'm resolved to have very gentle expectations of myself and really prioritize my mental and physical health for at least the next several months.

[Metalcat]

This is something Malcat said to me when I wondered why I was feeling more depressed and anxious after my family situation started to improve.  When you mentioned leaving your job because of burnout I had to find this quote. I don't know if it will help with the situation but it might feel better to know that someone else is going through something similar.

Also, it's not unusual for mental health to suffer when things are less objectively intense, because when things are really bad, you dissociate to a certain degree and can't feel the damage that's happening. That's why so many people think they can handle so much, but they can't, they're just deferring the processing.

That's really insightful; thanks for finding that quote (and thanks Malcat for sharing your wisdom; I always appreciate your posts :) ).

I have definitely experienced this delayed reaction at various times of my life but haven't quite thought about it in this way, especially not when it comes to work stresses...those are socially constructed as things we are expected to just handle, right?  To compartmentalize, to close the door on when we go home after work, to not allow to have an effect on our real inner lives.  I feel that even when we are spending most of our waking hours at work, the challenges we face there are somehow not supposed to have a real effect on us that causes actual damage that we then need actual time and effort to recover from.  We are supposed to be strong and simply not let this happen.  And even if you're having crying jags after work, well, that's not long-term damage that you'll have to process later, right?  Simply remove the cause, and that'll flip the switch right back to the way you were before.  Yeah.

Probably this all intersects with the traditional refusal to recognize that mental health needs are real + the associated stigmatization of them.  It's wonderful to see how much attitudes around that are changing, but obviously there's a lot of lingering...stuff.

On a more personal note, I have been feeling pretty validated in my burned-out-ness by watching my replacement take on (a scaled down version of) my responsibilities; we've had a few conversations that boil down to wondering how to possibly stay in shouting distance of being on top of everything.  Me: "You can't.  Accept that now."  Replacement:  "...I don't know how you did this* for five years..."  Me: Hahahahaha.  (=shell-shocked laughter sprinkled with a weird combo of excitement at leaving + flashbacks to, ahem, particularly challenging moments of a couple of years ago when I was on the brink of quitting multiple times)

*Honestly, I don't either.  It's much better at work now than it was two years ago, but as Malcat described...I dissociated and deferred the processing for a bunch of what happened then.  I felt I had to;  people were depending on me to keep functioning at a high level, and so I did, come hell or high water.  I don't regret that, but I'm so glad I decided to go ahead and pull the plug now and lay all of this down.  Three more weeks until my last day...and I'm resolved to have very gentle expectations of myself and really prioritize my mental and physical health for at least the next several months.

Is this a prevailing belief?

Where I am, it's always been acknowledged that yes, work fucks you up, but the cold, corporate expectation is that you deal with it on your own time and don't let it affect your work.

However, the allowance has always been given that the damage happens.

It could be a cultural difference of living in a city where the government is the largest employer and they openly acknowledge their problems with employee burnout and the troubling prevalence of people taking short term disability as a result of workplace stress.

So it's just not part of the discourse here that work shouldn't cause emotional damage, but it is largely shrugged off as an unfortunate, but difficult to avoid consequence that no one knows how to solve so no one really tries.

I have personally always trained my staff that there is no honour in working themselves into the ground.

[snowball]

FWIW, it's never been much acknowledged by my employers, but that's a small sample set, so I don't know.  It's also possible my perceptions have been skewed by the way I was raised;  my parents always considered it immensely unacceptable to acknowledge or admit to the existence of emotional damage from...anything, really.

[Metalcat]

FWIW, it's never been much acknowledged by my employers, but that's a small sample set, so I don't know.  It's also possible my perceptions have been skewed by the way I was raised;  my parents always considered it immensely unacceptable to acknowledge or admit to the existence of emotional damage from...anything, really.

That seriously sucks.

[friedmmj]

You likely hadn't really considered retiring TO something (new career, traveling, specific hobby, bucket list stuff, etc) and that's likely part of it too.

Yeah I definitely didn't retire TO anything, I was just burnt out and had to go.  Not much I can do about that now, not for lack of trying, LOL!

I retired "to" something and it was a mistake and really messed with my decompression.

This is a fresh take and one that I don't see anywhere.  I am retiring from something for sure, but that's just the first step in the journey.  I need some time and space to clear the crap out of my brain caused by a full time job and I fully intend to fill it back up with a combination of various hobbies and other pursuits.  But, to expect me to solve what all that will entail is too much to ask in my opinion while I'm still serving time.

[Metalcat]

You likely hadn't really considered retiring TO something (new career, traveling, specific hobby, bucket list stuff, etc) and that's likely part of it too.

Yeah I definitely didn't retire TO anything, I was just burnt out and had to go.  Not much I can do about that now, not for lack of trying, LOL!

I retired "to" something and it was a mistake and really messed with my decompression.

This is a fresh take and one that I don't see anywhere.  I am retiring from something for sure, but that's just the first step in the journey.  I need some time and space to clear the crap out of my brain caused by a full time job and I fully intend to fill it back up with a combination of various hobbies and other pursuits.  But, to expect me to solve what all that will entail is too much to ask in my opinion while I'm still serving time.

The "retire to" thing is for people who aren't overly autonomous in their own lives. If they don't "retire to" something, they risk aimlessly doing nothing and fading away. It's common, but it's nonsense for the FI crowd, which is by definition an autonomous group of people who are perfectly capable of directing our own lives.

FWIW, I didn't "retire to" something because I as afraid of doing nothing, I did it because I wanted to open the door to future alternative part time career options, so I "retired to" an intensive graduate degree. I figured it would give me an excuse to hunker down and read a lot. It was a nice idea, but what I really needed *was* actually to do nothing for awhile.

[chevy1956]

You likely hadn't really considered retiring TO something (new career, traveling, specific hobby, bucket list stuff, etc) and that's likely part of it too.

Yeah I definitely didn't retire TO anything, I was just burnt out and had to go.  Not much I can do about that now, not for lack of trying, LOL!

I retired "to" something and it was a mistake and really messed with my decompression.

This is a fresh take and one that I don't see anywhere.  I am retiring from something for sure, but that's just the first step in the journey.  I need some time and space to clear the crap out of my brain caused by a full time job and I fully intend to fill it back up with a combination of various hobbies and other pursuits.  But, to expect me to solve what all that will entail is too much to ask in my opinion while I'm still serving time.

I didn't retire to anything. I don't think it's required as well. I do think there will be an adjustment period but I also think that will be on-going and I don't think retiring to something would help the adjustment period.

I don't see retirement as constantly looking to do more stuff. I do stuff to amuse myself or keep myself busy. It's for my own piece of mind. That means if I just want to smoke pot, play guitar and read it's all good.

Honestly I spend more time cooking, reading, playing guitar and exercising.

I've been retired over a year now and I'm still adjusting to the slower pace.

[Metalcat]

You likely hadn't really considered retiring TO something (new career, traveling, specific hobby, bucket list stuff, etc) and that's likely part of it too.

Yeah I definitely didn't retire TO anything, I was just burnt out and had to go.  Not much I can do about that now, not for lack of trying, LOL!

I retired "to" something and it was a mistake and really messed with my decompression.

This is a fresh take and one that I don't see anywhere.  I am retiring from something for sure, but that's just the first step in the journey.  I need some time and space to clear the crap out of my brain caused by a full time job and I fully intend to fill it back up with a combination of various hobbies and other pursuits.  But, to expect me to solve what all that will entail is too much to ask in my opinion while I'm still serving time.

I didn't retire to anything. I don't think it's required as well. I do think there will be an adjustment period but I also think that will be on-going and I don't think retiring to something would help the adjustment period.

I don't see retirement as constantly looking to do more stuff. I do stuff to amuse myself or keep myself busy. It's for my own piece of mind. That means if I just want to smoke pot, play guitar and read it's all good.

Honestly I spend more time cooking, reading, playing guitar and exercising.

I've been retired over a year now and I'm still adjusting to the slower pace.

This is so true, I spend no time looking for stuff to do. Quite the opposite, I just do whatever I feel like doing and I find stuff to do along the way.

The world is filled with shit to do, and when you have free time, it's actually easier to be more aware of it.

I spend more time talking to the people I encounter now, and it's amazing how many things come up when I'm not rushing to be somewhere else.

I also read the posters at the library, and subscribe to a bunch of newsletters about things happening in the community. So I always k know when something really interesting is happening nearby.

I never ever feel like I'm chasing something to do, the world is filled with things to do, I'm just much more aware of them.

It's amazing how much of the world you tune out when you don't have time for it.

[2sk22]

This is so true, I spend no time looking for stuff to do. Quite the opposite, I just do whatever I feel like doing and I find stuff to do along the way.

The world is filled with shit to do, and when you have free time, it's actually easier to be more aware of it.

I spend more time talking to the people I encounter now, and it's amazing how many things come up when I'm not rushing to be somewhere else.

I also read the posters at the library, and subscribe to a bunch of newsletters about things happening in the community. So I always k know when something really interesting is happening nearby.

I never ever feel like I'm chasing something to do, the world is filled with things to do, I'm just much more aware of them.

It's amazing how much of the world you tune out when you don't have time for it.

It’s over a year since I retired as I type this on a typical weekday morning. I slept well last night and got up rested. Went to the gym and worked out for an hour. Had a leisurely breakfast and read the papers. And now it’s about 9am. I don’t have any chores for the day: no bills to be paid, no documents to be filed, no grocery shopping. In fact, I have absolutely no demands on my time for the rest of the day.

I can do whatever I want and furthermore, there is no shortage of things that I want to do:
- I have assembled a dream workshop in my basement and could work on building scale models and run my model trains
- I have at least a dozen fascinating books that that I want to read
- I could be working on a programming project that promises to be fun

And yet on some days, I feel a bit paralyzed because a small part of my mind is screaming “its Monday morning - get to work”. On those days, it does take some conscious effort to get out of this state. The good news is that the number of days when I get this feeling is decreasing as time passes. It takes a while to overcome the programming of decades.

[Metalcat]

This is so true, I spend no time looking for stuff to do. Quite the opposite, I just do whatever I feel like doing and I find stuff to do along the way.

The world is filled with shit to do, and when you have free time, it's actually easier to be more aware of it.

I spend more time talking to the people I encounter now, and it's amazing how many things come up when I'm not rushing to be somewhere else.

I also read the posters at the library, and subscribe to a bunch of newsletters about things happening in the community. So I always k know when something really interesting is happening nearby.

I never ever feel like I'm chasing something to do, the world is filled with things to do, I'm just much more aware of them.

It's amazing how much of the world you tune out when you don't have time for it.

It’s over a year since I retired as I type this on a typical weekday morning. I slept well last night and got up rested. Went to the gym and worked out for an hour. Had a leisurely breakfast and read the papers. And now it’s about 9am. I don’t have any chores for the day: no bills to be paid, no documents to be filed, no grocery shopping. In fact, I have absolutely no demands on my time for the rest of the day.

I can do whatever I want and furthermore, there is no shortage of things that I want to do:
- I have assembled a dream workshop in my basement and could work on building scale models and run my model trains
- I have at least a dozen fascinating books that that I want to read
- I could be working on a programming project that promises to be fun

And yet on some days, I feel a bit paralyzed because a small part of my mind is screaming “its Monday morning - get to work”. On those days, it does take some conscious effort to get out of this state. The good news is that the number of days when I get this feeling is decreasing as time passes. It takes a while to overcome the programming of decades.

I solve this "get to work" reflex by doing morning physio stretches. It's my go to when I feel I need to start my day productive.

[chevy1956]

It's amazing how much of the world you tune out when you don't have time for it.

This is to me a really interesting point. I've learnt so much more about the world compared to prior to retirement. I've also spend so much time doing stuff that isn't learning but just doing meaningless stuff like playing board games or reading fantasy novels.