Scientists tell us that being connected and active is one of the secrets to having meaningful and fulfilling life when older. What activities and connections are you planning on pursuing?
When I retired, 5 years ago, I planned to spend more time in online games and maybe find a nonprofit to work with. The online game (Eve) that I’d been playing for years turned tedious after just a few months, and I never found a really interesting NPO. I started walking to local restaurants for lunches, and that simple thing has given me a much greater sense of connection to the community than I got in 20 years of commuting through it. Youtube, Reddit, and now Lemmy, let me feel connected with my interests without having to comment - basically to get a sense of cool stuff that other people are doing, either for inspiration or reassurance. Woodworking, machining, home server/automation, and recently chili pepper farming. I’m reclusive, but I love this life, and I wouldn’t go back for anything. And who knows: I might still get inspired by some NPO.
I’d like to go back to basic scientific research. Unfortunately modern “scientific system” have pushed most of us out of meaningful research, to do short term, low value work in private sector. I hope to retire early, having enough money to set up my own small lab (in my field of expertise it is possible thanks to cloud providers), doing meaningful (for me) research, and publishing in honest way, for free, out of the main corrupted channels (established publishers).
That’s my dream. It’s not much, I will probably be ridiculed by many, but at least I will enjoy what I am doing feeling as I am “doing the right thing”, not a cog in the scientific mafia system
Scavenging for food and water in a wasteland after the climate wars. Assuming I’m alive and the planet is still “livable”.
Retirement is a pipe dream for the fortunate. I, along with the majority of my human counterparts, will be forced to work till the day we die.
Work. I can never make the money to retire.
Travelling
I also want to build a kick-ass sun dial
As someone who travels a lot, it’s exhausting and incredibly expensive. Either it’s short enough that you feel obligated to try and stay consistently busy or it’s long enough that you begin to miss the familiar. I had dreams of trying to join the Century Club when I was younger - I’m about a 3rd of the way there, and the older I get the more I feel like I hate travelling due to how exhausting it is - dealing with airports is just the absolute worst. I’m worried that I’m going to get to retirement and just be done with it all and just become a hermit.
The sundial thing sounds awesome though.
Finally get some sleep.
I want to read the huge pile of books I never get round to. Plus reread the ones I read thirty years ago. Then I’ll go cycling a lot more often than now, for as long as I can still do that. Oh, and maybe try not to be a grumpy old codger. But that’s a big maybe.
The same things I do now probably, assuming I live that long. I’d just have more time for them.
Gardening and macro photography.
If funds are good, travel and landscape photography.
I love travelling and do it now, but would love to do longer stays in places when I’m retired. A few months in Bali, a few months in Thailand, just explore and enjoy. I also want to learn how to fly, I’m hoping to take some lessons and get started but it’s expensive and time consuming. Maybe when I’m retired I’ll have enough saved up
I hope to be able to slow down enough to have time to do some woodworking, painting, writing, model building, and general tinkering. I expect that talking about doing these things and going to groups built around these activities will connect me to other people. If physical stores selling hobby supplies and hardware still exist, I might get to know some regulars there, too.
I am relatively young and still have a lot of debts in the form of loans. One of my coworkers was telling me about how since I don’t have children (and the expenses that go along with them) and we make a decent wage at my company, I could play my cards right and maybe even retire early.
But I just can’t picture myself retiring at all. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what I would do with my spare time. I’m a fairly socially anxious person with few, if any, connections to others. It’s going to work every day that gets me out of bed and socializing. And I get along well with my coworkers. I can’t imagine one day no longer doing that. It might honestly make me depressed.
I’ll probably just work for as long as possible then cut down to something like part time or a PRN position.
Hanging around in the woods, mostly.
I want to build a hovercraft of my own design, then build a submarine out of an old natural gas or propane tank, and eventually scale that up to building a drone I can ride.
I will not do these things, but it’s nice to dream.
