Things we lose in retirement - purpose

Transcript

Something else we lose when we retire is often a sense of purpose. When we're working, we feel like we're kind of like striving with others towards a common goal. And we have all these things that we want to accomplish in our career, at our work, for the company, etc. And we always have this sort of sense of drive and purpose. When we retire, we kind of leave all that behind. And it leaves a lot of us feeling like we got sort of detached from our anchoring purpose. And oftentimes, it'll cause us to start looking for what's our new purpose. One of the things that I say a lot on this channel is, I had to come to the realization that I didn't need to have a purpose to be happy. And it took me a little while, like maybe a year and a half, before I came to that place. You know, I started by saying, I think I'm just not, I feel like I don't have a purpose. And then it was, I need to find a new purpose. And then I realized, I don't need a new purpose. I can just be, I can just exist, I can just be happy. But I am a big fan of the idea of a retirement halfway house concept, where you say, well, I can't just quit all this stuff cold turkey. So for 90 days, I'm going to make my purpose, my weight, or my health, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life, or my life. So I'm going to help the kids, or I'm going to catch up on things right now. So whatever it is, you can give yourself sort of a transitional purpose to kind of bridge yourself over into that new retired identity. But just kind of be prepared for that sudden lack of purpose. And don't jump right to the conclusion that you need to replace it. But it's not a bad idea to sort of plunk something in there in the short term while you transition.