Many retirees say that they had the most trying times on their first year of retirement. Well, I can believe that, after all this is a big transition, just like our first few days in kindergarten when we don't know anyone and finding a friend or two seem elusive or after college when we look for a job and face the big wide world.
Not knowing what to do is one of the major challenges of newly retired individuals. Some have no agenda except to travel a bit, play golf, garden, fix the house, etc.; but eventually they find that those are not enough. Soon they are reluctant to get up in the morning because they have nothing to do and nowhere to go.
After retirement, most of us suddenly feel alone. Our friends from work now seem to belong to another world. Those with whom we have established a relationship will remain as friends but we lose the others because our only connection is work, moreover we no longer have the influence nor the personality.
When I needed someone to do odd jobs at home, I asked the office handyman to do the job on his day off and I give extra pay. When I needed a runner to for government concerns, I pay someone from the office. Likewise when my husband needed one to have his car checked or renew registration he would pay an office driver to do them. Now we no longer have that connection so we do it on our own.
When we catch up with friends from the former office, they'll talk about the office. What good is that? That's our past, we left that already, shouldn't we look forward to the future. The sooner we wean ourselves from our former work, the experts advise, the easier our adjustment will be.
What is there to do then? How do we fill our days? If we were busy persons at work, we will look for that kind of lifestyle. We will look for those regular meetings, preparing reports and meeting deadlines; team coordination on special events, brainstorming for upcoming projects and other discussions and interactions that pump up our adrenaline.
We miss the feeling of belonging; the early morning coffee time exchanging grapevine news. We miss the quick breakfast with a colleague or choosing where to get lunch delivery; we long for that tete-a-tete with an office friend. We miss the after-work socials, the "one-for-the-road", at a nearby bar, oftentimes ending up one too many if it gets interesting.
How then can retirees move on???
I'm lucky that we had the convenience store to look after right after retirement. That gave me a reason to get up; it kept me busy in the mornings. In the afternoons I took it easy, read books and fixed things around the house that I meant to do earlier on.
Socialization could be a solution, it is highly recommended to build our social network. In the getting acquainted stage however, we seem at a loss not knowing exactly how to introduced ourselves, “err..the former administrator, the former bank manager or the former VP". See, we are even reduced to just "no one". How to describe ourselves?
Fellow seniors would invite us to their group, to do what they enjoy doing. If we don't feel doing the same, experts suggest that it is okay to say no. This is not the time to give in to peoples' invitation unlike when we had to play along in the corporate world. This is the time when we are finally free, we had a career, we built a home, we raised the children; isn't it time to do what we want?
But don't despair, retirement can open up new possibilities, but we have to do it alone or with our partner; together we make decisions and choices that will make us happy.
When we wake up to a new day consider it as a gift that we should be grateful about. We are still alive, strong and physically independent, lucid with a lot of experience, we could be assets to some institutions. Yet when we look up towards the heavens, we don't get an answer.
Would it be good to look inside our hearts and minds to get a head start? Why don't we look back to the days when we were happiest and find out what we were doing then? Let us look deep in our thoughts and be guided by our most treasured memories to discern how best we could live this third part of our lives. It is not bad to do that again.
On the flip side, it is not also bad to try something new, after all it is often said that in life there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths and situations. Would we consider taking an unfamiliar path because this may lead us to the best places?
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