Will retirement be the end of your beginning or the beginning of your end?
The choice is yours.
Math dictates the void of eliminating work hours must be replaced by something else.
Nature abhors vacuums. They’ll be filled – with something of your choosing or not.
Next year, I am stepping back from most of my duties as an advisor. I will still continue this blog and help my colleagues find college planning solutions for their clients. My days of working with people on a daily basis are over and therefore the question becomes what will I do?
Nature solves many of these queries for me. Being outside and creating natural ecosystems for birds, insects, and other living things is my passion.
Here is some stuff that’s recently come through the pipeline.
Ponds are a magnet for all sorts of wild life. We recently added this to the gardens.
The goal is to lure various insects, birds, and amphibians to this watering hole. Its still under construction but it will be filled with numerous native plants and more rocks for hiding places. If you build it it they will come. I honestly don’t know what I will do when the first tadpole arrives organically.
Speaking of building, I planted a bunch of Swamp Milkweed a couple of years ago with the intention of attracting Monarch Butterflies. The idea is to provide a place for them to lay their eggs. Milkweed is their sole source of food.
It worked! I found these guys a couple of weeks ago chowing down.
I can’t get enough of this stuff. My motto as Giants coach John Harbaugh likes to say: Attack each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.
A side benefit of this passion is I get to meet people who share this interest or just admire my work. Neighbors get to know you through passing chats. The same goes for volunteering at Community Gardens, The same people tend to show up on a regular schedule and it’s easy to talk about stuff you both like.
Luckily, I am an introvert and like to do things by myself. leaving everyday work won’t have the same effect upon me as most people since I become energized by solitary hobbies like working out and gardening rather than large gatherings.
Unfortunately many in retirement don’t possess that same skillset and become lonely once the daily connection with their former colleagues disappears.
It’s no joke, loneliness can literally kill you.
Making friends becomes more difficult as you age. It’s not that you all of sudden suck at it, the friends infrastructure breaks down along side advancing age.
Grown up children and the disappearance of a job create less opportunities for meeting people. Work, kids, and errands are fertile grounds for finding compadres.
Don’t despair there’s a solution. Like anything else, it takes reps.
Researchers estimated it took roughly 40 to 60 hours to move beyond an acquaintance, about 80 to 100 hours to become friends, and more than 200 hours to become close.
The strategy for making new friends in retirement is straightforward. Choose something that meets at the same time and place weekly, increasing your odds of finding somebody with similar interests and connecting with them
Another strategy is simply taking the time to reach out to someone.
Across13 experiments, people consistently underestimate how much someone would appreciate hearing from them. The effect was even stronger when the message was unexpected, or the relationship had become more distant. And another study found that after conversations, people tend to underestimate how much the other person liked them.
Just like saving for retirement, repetition is your best ally to avoid loneliness in a post-work world.
What good is your money if you don’t have people to enjoy it with?
