Figuring out what brings us joy in retirement is a…

Transcript

Something happened yesterday that reminded me again of how tricky it is to find what we actually love and how important it is to sort of abstract it up to the highest level. And that's when we start seeing all the sorts of things that could become as far as activities and hobbies and things we enjoy. I was out on a ride yesterday and I rode pretty far away, like four me, maybe 45 minutes to an hour away from home. I remember coming back and I saw a highway that I recognized and I immediately felt a little bit of disappointment. I was like, oh, it looks like I'm back to the places I know. And it just reminded me of how important exploring is to me. And I thought about, you know, all the projects, the technical projects I did throughout my career, they were only, interesting to me if they were novel or sort of uncharted territory. I always just detested the sort of mundane technical projects, but I would dig into something that was like exploring. And I realized that, you know, that's why I like to drive so much. I always take weird back roads. I like to explore. So I was able to take that and say, okay, what sort of things can a person do for fun that involves exploring? And fortunately, there's a bunch of things a person can do for fun that involves exploring. But you have to say, like, I couldn't say I really enjoyed deeply technical projects because I didn't. I did a lot of deeply technical projects that were sort of mundane and I absolutely did not enjoy them. So you can't stop and say, like, I really loved programming. It wasn't that. It was that I loved novel, uncharted projects. And, uh, and then I thought, well, what do I love about driving? I love driving places I haven't been. What do I love about my motorcycle? I love riding places that I typically wouldn't take my car. And it's all about exploring. So I think when we're going into retirement and we're trying to figure out like, what is it we love? What is it that is going to bring us the most amount of joy or happiness? We have to sort of abstract away from the specific things we enjoy and try to find what's common among several and come up with that sort of higher level of thing that brings us happiness or joy or whatever it is, you know, whatever you want to call it. But just think about that. Think about the things you enjoy and see if there's anything that's common amongst them or take one thing you really enjoy and try and abstract it up to the highest, most abstract level you can. Enjoy your retirement.