How to Survive Retirement

I retired at a fairly early age--actually, I was laid off from a position I had held for 25 years at a major midwest university. It was a difficult transition, mainly because I was laid off two years before I was eligible for retirement. That meant that I had to scramble for work (which friends managed to help me with) to survive for two years until I was officially able to retire at 55.

So now I'm retired and really wasn't quite mentally set up to know what I was going to do with all my free time. My friends were having a run of bad luck with their living arrangements so my interest became helping them. Basically, I had friends that got used to being able to call on me, day or night, whenever they needed anything--and most of the time the things they needed were things with which I didn't really need to get involved.

When you make other people your reason for existing, you basically lose your reason for existing. I found myself obsessing about the boundaries that I needed to put in place with my friends. It made me realize that the reason I was obsessing about it was because I had no other interests. I had lost my way in figuring out what I wanted to do as a retiree.

There are several things someone can do who is thinking about retiring (or is retired):

1. Take a class that might interest you at a community college or local university.
2. Study a foreign language, either online or pick up software.
3. Visit relatives with whom you've lost touch.
4. Spend time with friends having dinner, going to a movie, or some other activity that everyone agrees on.
5. Exercise! Go for a daily walk (great way to meet neighbors), go to the gym, get an exercise ball or stretchy bands to do some simple exercises and help speed up your metabolism and keep yourself in shape.
6. Venture out on your own to go to dinner, a movie, or take a vigorous walk--some people have issues with doing things on their own, but these can be stress relievers and may open you up to meet other people and further your social group.
7. Start a blog page that showcases your interests (sewing, reading, scuba diving, gardening, or writing in general). 

I'm not saying it's not a good thing to help people when you can, but it shouldn't be your only reason for existing, and it's an easy role to slip into and an even tougher one to slip out of.