
Why we lie about being retired - QuitterStrip
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48882195
======
40acres
There is a huge difference between retiring and retiring healthy. Both of my
parents retired due to medical reasons and are not as mobile as they once
were, they have confided in me that retirement is extremely boring and if it
wasnt for church and living so close to family (same apartment complex) they
would have nothing to do.

I'd love to see more programs that pair retirees with young people to tackle
local problems, there is a clear trend regarding increasing lonlieness among
young adults and retirement age folks.

~~~
mikestew
I can only assume the "nothing to do" retirement crowd didn't do much when
they were working, and therefore have no idea how to fill the time.
Personally:

1\. More volunteer time at the dog shelter.

2\. More reading.

3\. More music playing, and finally _really_ spend time on that violin that is
currently a secondary instrument.

4\. More time at "church" (read: Zen practice), yes, just like other old
people.

5\. Might finally have time to hike the Appalachian Trail, or at least large
parts of it.

6\. Finally find the time to sit down and decide what I want to do when I
retire, 'cuz there's no way this list is complete.

All but #5 should be able to be done by all but the most feeble. I hope I live
so long as to get bored in retirement.

~~~
mieseratte
> I can only assume the "nothing to do" retirement crowd didn't do much when
> they were working, and therefore have no idea how to fill the time.
> Personally:

Loads of folks derive personal value and meaning out of their work, and I'm
one of them. I've been out of work once for a few months, and that was with a
job waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

It was eye opening how depressive it was, to be robbed of your big "thing."
I'm saying this as someone with a boat load of little "things," reading,
outdoorsmanship, sports, etc. The second that surety of purpose is gone, so
goes my wider motivation.

~~~
m0zg
That's not the only way to "derive personal value and meaning" out of your
life. I take year-long breaks after each major job switch. You do experience
loss after leaving a job you enjoyed, but it passes after a few months (about
6 months for me). Then you kind of wonder why you didn't leave sooner.

This is all predicated on not needing money too much. I can see how someone
who doesn't have a financial cushion would feel depressed about not only
having to spend savings, but also not making money to cover the living
expenses. That was the hardest part to come to terms with (at least for me),
even though I'm not in any way struggling financially.

I'm kind of close to a point where I'd be fine to not ever even search for
another job. I got plenty of other things (perhaps too many) to derive meaning
from, and I don't need to get paid to properly derive it.

~~~
trilinearnz
Your comment intrigues me. Care to elaborate on what kind of passive income
structure you have established, to give you that "financial cushion"?

~~~
afterburner
He didn't mention passive income at all, he's just comfortable with eating
away at his savings until he's employed again.

~~~
m0zg
Pretty much. You can't make all the money in the world. There's more to life
than slaving away on someone else's bullshit for a buck. And make no mistake
99% of what we do at work is ultimately irrelevant bullshit that will be gone
and forgotten 10 years from now. When I work, I charge pretty penny though, to
sustain that kind lifestyle. I do consulting at the moment. Already made
enough money this year to last me 3-4 years. Mortgage is paid off, and I have
no debt at all.

US tech workplace is super unfriendly to part time work, unfortunately, so
instead I just "part time" by not working for a while every 3-4 years. My wife
does the same thing. She left her job over a year ago, so she's not working at
the moment, though she's more of a social animal, so she'll start looking in
September. Me? If the tech industry disappeared today, I'd breathe a sigh of
relief, and switch to brewing beer (which is something I'm pretty good at as
well). As things are right now, tech is the easiest possible way for me to
make the most money per hour (and therefore maximize my downtime).

------
esotericn
This is mostly an artifact, I think, of the fact that people are obsessed with
the question "what do you do?" within the narrow framing of a commercial job.

And everyone is expected to be working all the time otherwise they must be in
trouble somehow, despite the fact that at least 50% of people in Western
countries earn enough to not need to do that.

I've had periods, I suppose you would call them 'sabbatical', in which I've
mostly just mucked around. Learned a new language. Fiddled around with IoT
stuff. Done some travelling. Read a lot. Just enjoy life.

During that period, what am I? I'm just a guy. Historically I did software
development for work. In the future I'll probably do the same. But that
identity of full time employment just doesn't exist.

I generally joke and say I'm retired or that I'm an open source developer or
whatever else. But of course that's different coming from someone who won't be
hitting government retirement ages for a few decades.

~~~
hinkley
I've hated that question since the 1st grade when it was 'what will you do
(when you grow up)' No six year old knows the answer to that question and
that's a lot of pressure.

Also, you're at a social event, where people are supposed to be pretending to
be humans. Fuck you for making me think about work during my time off. With
all sincerity.

If I ask people an ice-breaker about activities, I ask them what they do for
fun.

~~~
ryandrake
“So what do you do” is one of those small-talky ice breaker questions that
people tend to use as a polite way to figure out where to stick you on their
social/class/importance totem pole. It’s usually none of the asker’s business,
but they ask anyway. I sometimes respond with “exotic dancer” which (if you
know what I look like) gets a laugh and allows the conversation to steer off
into a different direction.

~~~
Konnstann
I ask people what they do so that I can understand how to talk to them.
There's a huge difference between the jargon/diction I can use with someone
else in biotech vs someone is a completely unrelated field, as well as even
topics of conversation that we'd find interesting. I take a lot of pride in my
work and enjoy talking about it, and I'd guess a lot of people do as well. If
they don't we can always talk about something else.

------
jedberg
I’ve recently switched from asking people, “where do you work” to “what do you
fill your time with each day?”

Most people just tell me where they work and what they do. Some people tell me
about other things, and if they are retired or unemployed they don’t feel
embarrassed.

Maybe if we all started doing this, people would feel less compelled to tie
their job to their identity.

~~~
perspective1
I've tried exactly that. Most of what I got back was questioned looks followed
by something like, "you mean where do I work?" Maybe I'm around different
people.

~~~
jedberg
I mostly get the same response. It’s a slow moving revolution. :)

------
dstroot
I’ve retired twice so far. Each time I loved it for a while and then
eventually I miss the social contacts from a work environment and the
stimulation. I LOVE making things happen. So I end up going back to work for a
while. Also paying for healthcare on your own is challenging. It would be
ideal for older folks to gracefully exit full time work by transitioning to
part time but also have a means to keep health care.

~~~
whichquestion
This is one of the reasons I want universal health care in my country. I
should be able to get the health care I need from my government for a
reasonable cost regardless of my employment situation. I don’t want to have to
sacrifice my retirement plans because of my inability to pay for health care.

~~~
MystK
Would you be willing to pay 10% more of your taxes your whole career for this?
I'm sure everything wants what you want, but I think the question is at what
cost.

~~~
the_gastropod
I'm sure this was asked in good faith. Increasingly, it seems like this
question is not, however. It feels like this dead horse has been beaten into a
pulp. Looking only at the government side of the ledger, and ignoring the
private-sector savings at this point in time, when there's _so much_ talk
about public healthcare, seems willfully obtuse.

The U.S. already spends more on healthcare (by pretty much every measure) than
every other developed nation on the planet. Much of this goes to profits of
insurance companies, the overhead of having so many parties involved,
advertising budgets, etc. Raising taxes to pay for healthcare should result in
a _net_ savings for virtually everyone, as these profit-seeking activities are
eliminated. The only real debate taking place among economists w/r/t cost is
_how much_ of a savings we'll get by moving to a single payer plan.

------
_hardwaregeek
I'm young and nowhere close to retiring, but I already have friends who have
bought into the whole retire early train. Except, it's kinda like the recent
SNL skit Romano Tours^[1]. If you're sad now, you're gonna be sad then.
Retiring isn't gonna fix their problems. They're not going to be suddenly
happy. And even if everything goes right (no kids, no health problems, high
income, low cost of living) and they retire "early", that's still going to be
in their late 30's, early 40's. And then what? My friends claim they'll figure
something out, but if they've lived 40 years without any sense of self
actualization, I'm skeptical that they'd suddenly find themselves.

I'm not saying one should work a meaningless job instead of retiring, but I
don't get waiting for decades to find one's purpose in life. Might as well
wait for Godot. And if retiring early doesn't work out, one can end up like
the main character in Ikiru: 30 years of perfect attendance and absolutely
nothing to show for it.

But hey, maybe that's just my anxiety about starting out adult life.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbwlC2B-BIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbwlC2B-BIg)

------
ergothus
One thing I think is notable is how the article that work is how people meet
others and encounter new ideas.

As online interactions and news become more prevalent (I realize not everyone
is equally online), does this change?

I myself have never shared my family's "I can't imagine life without work" \-
I've been emotionally eager for retirement since I was 20 and the last 20
years have only sharpened my appetite. There is so much to learn and try that
work just in the way of. Of course, much of what I want to do could be
considered "work", but the freedom to do it to the degree I want at any
moment, and on my own schedule is a big deal.

But this article made me think about how that is true for me BECAUSE I don't
have to go to an office to be exposed to new ideas, to be aware of new
developments.

Sadly, I've got at least 20 more years to go before I get to test the reality
of my expectations.

------
raintrees
I have shifted to part-time, and found it a bit difficult at first. What
helped me most was assigning priorities, refreshing my To Do list once a week
or so.

Without it, I tended to spend most of the day doing who knows what, and
realizing the day was pretty much over.

I was also the type who had a hard time relaxing when going on a week or two
of vacation. Maybe 4-5 days before I had finally unwound, then champing at the
bit 9-10 days in, having a hard time waiting to get back to "work."

So I am setting up passive income streams, expecting I will likely be a
tinkerer, rather than a complete life of leisure, as I had first fantasized...

That also seems to sort my "identity" as well, as I, too, identified myself by
my chosen profession...

------
hsnewman
I have already retired from a City job, and am working still. I am reaping
great income from doing this, but my time working will be ending soon. I plan
on having a active retirement with my wife and staying healthy as a result.
(Less than 1 year and counting @ 60 yrs old)...

------
ralphc
The thing about retirement for most HN readers is that you don't have to stop
your "work". Programming, writing, these are activities you can continue to
do, and make a difference. Unlike doctors, lawyers, hair stylists etc. that
need another person to do their profession.

I retired at 55, and I'm learning data science and machine learning, doing
some Salesforce work for a nonprofit, and I hope to contribute to the reboot
of the HospitalRun project.

------
jeanmichelx
That Arab Spring comparison is gross. Opressive governments are making
political opponents disappear, use torture, etc. But sure tell me how hard it
is to work two more years.

------
readhn
Most people lead boring lives long before their retirement...

have friends who have no lives, dont take vacations. just going through the
motions. Whats the point?

~~~
kleer001
Their individual points and motivations? Their place in evolutionary time and
motivation?

Not everyone is highly creative and a go-getting problem solver. Not everyone
is a life long learner. If fact they're kinda rare.

------
tyayers
Every phase of life can be a difficult transition, we should mentor retirees
to help them find their purpose in their new situation. Capitalism tends to
only recognize jobs on the basis of wealth, but what truly counts is being
fulfilled by how we pass the hours, of being needed, and retirees have a great
opportunity to find that in unexpected places. In German the word for career
is Beruf, which means "calling" \- that is a great way of seeing it, and
finding our calling, regardless of our phase in life. But we can't always get
lucky and find our calling alone, and so we should always be on the lookout to
help those around us find theirs.

------
maire
I finally realized what bothers me about this article. It assumes that when
you retire you are no longer a practitioner of your life's work. Being
employed is your only definition of self. I might be a retired but I am still
an engineer. I still think and do as an engineer - just nobody is paying me.

All this reminds me of Ursula Le Guin's final book of essays before she passed
away. Le Guin received a survey for 1951 graduates of Harvard or Radcliff. The
survey assumed that employment is the only value to your life.

Here is a quote from the book:

“But it was Question 18 that really got me down. ‘In your spare time, what do
you do? (check all that apply).’ And the list begins: ‘Golf…’

...

“The key words are spare time. What do they mean?

“To a working person — supermarket checker, lawyer, highway crewman,
housewife, cellist, computer repairer, teacher, waitress — spare time is the
time not spent at your job or at otherwise keeping yourself alive, cooking,
keeping clean, getting the car fixed, getting the kids to school. To people in
the midst of life, spare time is free time, and valued as such.

“But to people in their eighties? What do retired people have but ‘spare’
time?

“I’m not exactly retired, because I never had a job to retire from. I still
work, though not as hard as I did. I have always been and am proud to consider
myself a working woman. But to the Questioners of Harvard my lifework has been
a ‘creative activity,’ a hobby, something you do to fill up spare time.
Perhaps if they knew I’d made a living out of it they’d move it to a more
respectable category, but I rather doubt it.

“The question remains: When all the time you have is spare, is free, what to
do you make of it?….

“The opposite of spare time is, I guess, occupied time. In my case I still
don’t know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has
been and it is now. It’s occupied by living.

“An increasing part of living, at my age, is mere bodily maintenance, which is
tiresome. But I cannot find anywhere in my life a time, or a kind of time,
that is unoccupied.

“I am free, but my time is not.

“My time is fully and vitally occupied with sleep, with daydreaming, with
doing business and writing friends and family on email, with reading, with
writing poetry, with writing prose, with thinking, with forgetting, with
embroidering, with cooking and eating a meal and cleaning up the kitchen, with
consulting Virgil, with meeting friends, with talking with my husband, with
going out to shop for groceries, with walking if I can walk and traveling if
we are traveling, and sitting Vipassana sometimes, with watching a movie
sometimes, with doing the Eight Precious Chinese exercises when I can, with
lying down for an afternoon rest with a volume of Krazy Kat to read and my own
slightly crazy cat occupying the region between my upper thighs and mid-
calves, where he arranges himself and goes instantly and deeply to sleep.

“None of this is spare time. I can’t spare it. What is Harvard thinking of? I
am going to be eighty-one next week. I have no time to spare.”

