I'm in my 50s. About two months into retirement I fell into the deepest depression of my life because I couldn't shake the "who am I without my job?" question. It took almost a year (and therapy) to accept that I still add value without working.

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mettamage 3 days ago | parent [-]

I'm a person that wants to learn anything and everything. So guess what I'd do if I'd retire?

Work feels pretty stifling to me.

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LatencyKills 3 days ago | parent [-]

> I'm a person that wants to learn anything and everything.

That is exactly what I do now. Every question I've ever had I now have the time to devote to answering it. I take classes, I volunteer, I mentor Comp. Sci. students. But, more than anything, I still write code. I spent the last few months creating an LLM from scratch which was incredibly fun.

That said, I have a friend who will probably work until he dies. His only real interest in life is his job. I'm not suggesting that is a bad thing; its more to the point that "retirement" isn't a panacea for everyone.

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thefaux 3 days ago | parent [-]

I do see this as a bad thing and an abdication of taking responsibility for one's own life. As was recently put to me after the sudden death of a friend's father (who lived an unusually rich life): everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives.

	▲	LatencyKills 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Ah... we found the person who thinks they can pass judgement on how people choose to live their lives. I didn't say that my friend doesn't love his job (he does) - I said that he'll probably die before retiring. Stephen Hawking, Einstein, Marie Curie, and Linus Pauling never retired. Did they not "truly live"?