I retired at 53 and had a list of things I was going to do (e.g. mastering Photoshop). I never got around to doing any of them.
I did join the Badger & Blade site (
Badger & Blade ) and mastered wet shaving again, something I hadn't been able to do for three decades. Then we bought a new place and I had to learn chainsawing (safely), brush-cutting and hedging. And more recently I joined AFF and learned about FF points. And that's about it.
The sad part is that while watching some work colleagues easily adapt to retirement like me, others do not do so well and are unhappy, despite no financial issues. The difference is that those with problems suffer from the irrational notion that in order to be worthwhile, they must be doing something worthwhile. Thus when not doing something "worthwhile", they have feelings of worthlessness.
I've had numerous discussions like, "How come you are suffering from the Protestant Work Ethic ...... you aren't even Protestant?".
I have even had similar discussions in Italy, where people invariably ask me what I do all day, and are surprised when I unashamedly say "Nothing", as many of them too are into the only-being-worthwhile-by-doing-worthwhile-things business.
Very sad when people could be happy, but irrationally choose to feel worthless and unhappy instead.
Regards,
Renato