I have an image in my head of what I want retirement / no more work to be but the – it feels like a long time – bit between now and then is a frustratingly unhappy mystery
+1.
I’m 55- at this age my dad had just retired with a nice DB pension thanks to BT once being part of the civil service. He had 14 years of retirement to enjoy.
Thanks to my crap pension situation I’ll be going for a few more years. If I match his expiry date then I probably won’t have much of a retirement to fund!l anyway!
I had sports cars in my 20s so got that ticked off
Better after a bit of a break and a change to my WFH working to try and do more during the day other than just work,
About three months ago I changed to compressed hours at work, doing a four day week has been a real positive, the weekends are no longer packed with tasks / travel to in laws so a bit more relaxed
Think I'm similar to a lot of people on here. I'm early 40s and at time it feels like I'm just waiting for my retirement so I can start enjoying stuff. I love my wife and kids but the work stuff doesn't really interest me. I like the people and actually enjoy going into the office but my enjoyment of the actual work stuff comes and goes. Having previously (and if I'm honest, still) suffered from depression I can get into some fairly apathetic moods. Today I'm struggling to get to work.
Retirement is on the distant horizon as some kind of utopia but I know it's not really like that and since my Dad died last year at 65 and having never met my FiL who died at 52 I know nothing is guaranteed.
Feels like something needs to change but not sure what or how to make it happen
I’m 55- at this age my dad had just retired with a nice DB pension thanks to BT once being part of the civil service.
What a difference a decade makes! I'm 44. My dad went into BT (actually the GPO) at 16, and stayed til redundancy aged 36 during privatisation. Didn't retire til 67. Funny old world
Hhhmmmm … 61 now but, married young, kids, pressure job, divorced, motorbikes, re married more kids, bought a Mason. Crippling angina, stents and meds, bought another Mason. Wife diagnosed as terminal so at home most of the time caring for her … still got time to buy another Mason.
My “Porsche” seems to be Masons 😁
There was an interesting Podcast by the mathematician Hannah Fry, about the mid-life crisis being a real thing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r2wr
There is a "happiness curve" where we are happiest in life at around 16-18 and this drops down to a lowest point at around 48-55 and then picks back up again to peak again at about 70
Strangely this has been shown to be the same for men and women, the same wherever you are in the world, and that they even interviewed a group of zoo keepers and that this seems to be the same for many primates too.
Very interesting re the happiness curve. Didn't really enjoy my teens until just over 18. Had a pretty good 20s and then went boring / middle aged in my 30s. 40s was really up and down, no MLC. Now in my 50s I am very comfortable in my own skin. Certainly don't want a Porsche or other status symbol.
+1. I’ve offered wondered if others in their 50’s think this. I have an image in my head of what I want retirement / no more work to be but the – it feels like a long time – bit between now and then is a frustratingly unhappy mystery.
Very much this. I think "ennui" is a great way to describe it. Who knew French A level literature would finally come in useful 35 years later.
Very interesting re the happiness curve. Didn’t really enjoy my teens until just over 18.
Yeah, 15-20ish was the most miserable time of my life. No major reason, I had nice parents and good friends. But it's all been uphill from there (until health problems kicked in at 40)
Very interesting re the happiness curve. Didn’t really enjoy my teens until just over 18. Had a pretty good 20s and then went boring / middle aged in my 30s. 40s was really up and down, no MLC. Now in my 50s I am very comfortable in my own skin. Certainly don’t want a Porsche or other status symbol.
+1 pretty much my experience too, I loved the late '90s, when I was in my later 20s and still young enough and with some cash to spend, but not the 2010s 🙁 yuk, stress at work, busy home life, lots of being pulled in different directions in my 40s, but now, mid-50s and it's like I have swum upstream hard-going through some rapids, and now the river has become a bit calmer, and I can enjoy things more... roll on retirement though 🙂
Late teens through to mid twenties were a ****ing rollercoaster of depression and euphoria for me. Last twenty years have been fairly steady since leaving England. I’ve had a charmed life I guess. The main thing is that I understand what makes me happy and unhappy so have the ability to manage things myself most of the time.
my old man retired at 58, 30 years ago and he is still hanging in there. I am 56 and no way can I see myself retiring for a while, in fact there is part of me doesnt want to. I started quite a tough role in the IT dept at a London Uni that should keep me busy for ten years.<br /><br />Would I feel different if I didnt have a massive mortgage and two boys in private school for the next few years? I have a younger wife who loves her career thank g0d!
What's that saying, life begins at 40? Lying bastards.
The key to having a mid life crisis is embracing it, rather than confronting it... If you consider it to be a crisis, then it becomes one. If you consider it part of your (new) normal behaviour, then it is no longer a crisis...
It also helps if you start a bit earlier than mid life... Early 20's or even late teens helps... And don't plan on stopping just cos you've got to retirement age either! That's the time to ramp up the activity, prove it was never a crisis all along!
I resigned from my job yesterday with no idea what to do for an income. Have no passion for work and just want to ride my bike wothout the stress from inept management.
If I could turn the clocks back I'd stop myself wasting time on an Art degree and have started a small business.
Was speaking with a mate/former work colleague the other day from my previous job. Another guy there is still working aged 81, they are both in Lagos commissioning a factory so not easy/light work. It was a good job for saving money as site pay was really good with everything paid for. He must be worth a fortune🤷♂️
Was speaking with a mate/former work colleague the other day from my previous job. Another guy there is still working aged 81, they are both in Lagos commissioning a factory so not easy/light work. It was a good job for saving money as site pay was really good with everything paid for. He must be worth a fortune🤷♂️
Interesting. My late BIL worked installing and decommissioning heavy equipment well into his 70s and before heart attack, cancer and stroke in quick succession took him he worked like a trooper.
I've plans for a low level working retirement and I need to get started on learning the skills and gaining qualifications in the next 20 years to get me there.
I worked in a consulting engineering firm in my 20s and we had this lovely old fella called Ted that was a civil engineer. Must have been 80+. He and his wife would come to drinks every Friday without fail. Not sure what his output was like… he’d often have a kip at the desk.
