Hard paragraph to parse.
Umm… being useful to people and things that you care about makes it much more fulfilling.
My Wife plans to volenteer at a big horse rescue facility. Would you consider that useful?
We just walked 1/2 mile to a bridge that has a lot of trash under it and started picking it up. Useful or not? A running trail, dog walk goes under that bridge. Kids party under it it looks like, we started picking up their trash. Lots more to do.
Sorry that’s hard to parse.
Yes those things are useful.
In fact, i suspect most people can readily volunteer to do stuff in retirement that’s more obviously useful than what they did for a living. There’s plenty of stuff that needs doing in the world.
I don’t know about most? Maybe? Some though have training that allow them to do substantial goods in their jobs that they would be hard pressed to do as much as an avocation. Teachers. Therapists. Ministers, rabbis, priests. Nurses. So on.
And people care about it to different degrees of course.
Maybe even more so is that doing it as a job is structured. Doing it in retirement is more like doing exercise for many? Something they know they will feel better for having done, maybe even like the doing of, but actually getting to the gym something that is easy to get out of the habit of doing.
I’m pretty sure it is most unless you have a really broad definition of doing “substantial good” , so broad that almost anything you could do to earn a living is included. I’ve been struggling about how to word the next part for about 15 minutes, and the best I have come up with is that people don’t add much to some jobs that are on their way to disappearing. I was a bank teller about 40 years ago (when ATMs were still relatively new) , and there were only a few things I could do that the ATM couldn’t. I could cash checks for non-customers that were drawn on my employer and I could process transactions that required the customer to receive $1, $5 or $10 bills rather than the $20 bills that were loaded into the ATM. Almost any volunteer work would have felt more like “doing good” than that job.
I notice that the jobs you mentioned
all have something in common - which is that people can continue to be employed in those jobs on a very flexible, part-time basis. Teachers can sign up as substitute teachers and nurses can sign on with an agency to do much the same thing, , therapists can keep a few patients, retired clergy can fill in for others on vacation or take a less structured role or sign up to provide services on a cruise ship or at a resort. But most jobs don’t lend themselves to that , either because it’s inherent to the job or because employers don’t want the additional administrative hassle of having four or more part-time employees rather than two full-timers.
I had a hand in developing technology that hundreds of millions of people have used. This is not technically true, it’s literally true. But legions of manufacturing engineers who developed commercial product components can say that and all I really did was help to generate revenue for corporations. It was mostly a super fun and challenging career that enabled me to travel the world and make some great friendships along the way.
That was not the commonality I was thinking of when listing them. I was thinking of helping professions. With both words being of importance - the very goal of the job is being useful to others in a palpable way, and the manner of which they do it required some training investment to acquire, a profession.
I understood that wasn’t the commonality that you were thinking of - just pointing out that those professions in particular allow a person to semi-retire and work on an occasional basis. Which I think affects whether a person even wants to retire - if I had the sort of job where I could have cut down to a few days a month, without committing to a schedule far in advance, I might not have retired when I did. But that wasn’t possible with the work I did - it was either full-time or fully retire. And you might be planning to retire if you were a different sort of physician, say a forensic pathologist working for a medical examiner’s office and part-time wasn’t an option.
I had a profession. GIS Application Engineer. I no longer do that. I retired. 3 weeks now. It’s not something that you ask your neighbor if he needs help with. “Do you need a GIS application?”
Today I built a landing for our stairs out to our garage. Oak. Tomorrow I need to finish off the railing.
I have no idea what folks are talking about ‘being usesful’ It’s easy. Hard to avoid actually.
I think that is what I miss about being employed and would miss about retirement. Being part of the process of making things that people use, travelling around a bit, working with smart and interesting people. Granted a lot of the work I do is project managing esoteric back office banking operations and tech, but sometimes it can be interesting and sometimes I do get to work on other projects that are fun and exciting.
It’s not necessarily about “being useful”. I’m plenty useful as a de-facto SAHD carting my kids around or doing home repair projects. I think it’s more about feeling disconnected from the world.
I have a couple of friends around my age in their early 50s who retired from years of investment banking. I can see that after spending a few decades of working crazy hours and making a shit ton of money to then take a break and spend more time with their families and going on golf vacations. Not sure how long that will last though, Their kids are only around 11 or so. So you have like 5 or so years, maybe less until they are more or less independent, then what do you do? Chill for the next 30 years?
I have another neighbor about our age who has dove back into her career now that her sons have graduated college. She was working in a sort of reduced capacity as a pharma rep but then landed this great job that requires her to travel to the city during the week.
OTOH, my uncle worked for the past 15 years at Home Depot, which he thought was fine, but really what he likes to do is what he’s doing now. Being retired and just working on his art projects.
I guess the point is you need to find something that keeps you engaged, whether that’s work or some other hobby or pursuit.
That’s fine. Find it. Last night my wife and I played 3 games of chess and two games of darts. That all takes some time. And really keeps you thinking (that’s important IMHO).
I/we are going to learn piano. We purchased lessons (online and books), but I barely have enough time to do it. I’m too busy doing other stuff. The piano is an Electric Yamaha.
I don’t really need that work connection to stay focused and useful. I don’t understand why anyone would.
I am one of those people who will feel disconnected from the world when I retire.
I live alone and there is really nothing available nearby that I can physically do as a volunteer at the moment.
I have to call a handyman just to get a lightbulb changed at this point. I am not climbing on a ladder or chair.
I can travel to visit cousins but that is not something I can do every month.
Just not looking forward to the abyss of disconnection.
You have the world at your fingertips. Right here on the SDMB.
But, I understand.
A lot of disdane I have for being with people is that my hearing is about 50% gone. So I enjoy things like chess and darts. I can make the piano as loud as I want.
That’s nice. Your inability to understand is noted.
Some of us may enjoy playing online here, and a host of other activities, and still feel more useful at work than we would … building a new garage stairs landing or playing darts. Being realistic, I can hire someone to build my garage stairs landing who will do it better than I would in less time and cost less than my trying to do it on my own.
An imperfect analogy: you are a great tight end. You have natural talent for the job and have trained to do it well. You get paid well to do it. Would you be tempted to retire from the job to try to learn to be a defensive lineman for no pay instead? Your most useful contribution to the team is the job you know and that you have extensive skills and experience doing. You enjoy it. Maybe you’d also enjoy the lineman thing? Or less absurd, playing pickleball instead.
I get that some people have jobs that do not deliver on feeling like they are making a positive difference in the world, or deliver on being appreciated. Some feel that playing chess and darts with their partner, learning piano, building a landing, will adequately compete with what work gives them in those regards. That is frankly the majority, or at least it is what the majority think retirement will be. You are part of that majority. And for you it is even true. Good for you.
Some sizable number of us are not. For various reasons. (My wife hates playing games with me if nothing else. I get too competitive.)
This is interesting. Both my wife and I have this competitive focus when it comes to games. I mentioned this to my mom once that it surprised me that my wife was so competitive. My mom looked at me and said “SHE WAS AN IRONMAN, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT”
Oh… right.
I’ve been doing too many jobs all my life. Working at work, working on my house, whatever. I now feel I can work for me. It no longer maters what day it is.
There are a growing number of cooperative games. A friend throws a coop game party every other week, and there are typically 20 people playing a bunch of different games, and i see new ones every time i go. You and your wife might enjoy some of those.
Yeah that doesn’t sound appealing to me.
If you could suggest a few I might try one, likely roping her into it when the kids are visiting.
That’s a cool idea. My wifes folks did something similar with cards. As it is we play chess, darts and cribbage. That eats up a lot of time.
Ok. It’s taking a bit of time to understand this retirement stuff. But unless I have some sort of appointment, the day of the week really does not matter.
Other than “Yeah, I gotta get that done” It really does not matter what day it is. I just try to get something done every day. And have some fun.
Today I went to Lowes to get more lumber and screws for the landing for our steps. OK. Not a big deal, but needed done. I’ll work on it later. Next I’m going to take one of our dogs to the dog park. My wife has the other and is walking her.
Then it’s steak on the grill. It’s January in Colorado and 52 degrees. It’s crazy.
Okay. I mostly play ones that are good for more people, but i know that several work for two players. I’ll ask my friend for two player suggestions.
I get that, but i agree with @DSeid , in that i want to be connected enough to the rest of the world that i know what day it is.