In the summer of 2014 I found myself out of a job. In the second half of my fifties I was not quite ready or prepared for retirement, I always thought I would work well into my 60's.
After several few months of looking for another job in my field, I was not getting anywhere. It is tough to find something when you are in your late fifties. Disheartened by the lack of any real prospects, I began to do some serious soul searching. Was part of the problem that I was not really keen about starting over again at another company? Was I tired of the corporate rat race? Was it time to try something completely different? I began to realize that answer to all these questions was yes.
We were living in a small condo in the city at the time and had a weekend home in the Niagara Region, that we had planned on eventually retiring to. I decided that it was time to shake things up and moved into our home as a full time resident. Maybe I could do something completely different with my life there.
After the initial excitement of the move, I began to struggle with loneliness and boredom. After all it was just me and my pets during the weekdays. My husband, still working in the city, joined me on the weekends. Because I had not planned on retiring so early, I had not given any thought to how live a fulfilling live after my work ended. I realized that I needed to start to lay the ground work to create a challenging and meaningful second act for myself. Instead of looking at it as a set back, I needed to view it as an opportunity to focus on things that really interested me and find fulfillment in new and different ways.
This blog will focus on my journey to build a meaningful life after retirement. Discovering new things and hopefully uncovering talents I never knew I had. I hope you find it interesting and that it helps you think about what your life will become once you leave the workplace and build a plan for your second act.
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