Early-retirement wannabe

mgdavid

Marine_life wrote: »

I am not giving an opinion on this yet....but I want to put the questions out there. Here it is.

What exactly is "living life to the full"?
I want your definition - not what you think the definition should be.

I'll have a stab, from an 'in retirement' POV:

Doing what you want, when you want, especially in the context of your interests and hobbies (or passion, if you are lucky enough to have one).
Setting yourself challenges or targets within the above context, and achieving them.

Giving yourself a good talking to when you catch yourself being lazy.
Nudging yourself outside of your comfort zone every now and then.

justme111

in other words you just want an answer to the question "what is a purpose of life":j

Bravepants

chiefie wrote: »

I was rubbish at French at school and now I!!!8217;m fluent (not affluent). I love history and learning the whys and how!!!8217;s of the past as they do indeed repeat themselves constantly. I!!!8217;m planning to learn web design (basics), want to learn the basics of sailing and I already volunteer. I!!!8217;m the same as you in many ways, easily bored without a challenge and am rubbish at diy etc but don!!!8217;t want to be defined by what my job is. It is/was a big part time of me but too big to be honest. I!!!8217;m going to have to learn new stuff and it won!!!8217;t be easy to shift my way of being into something new but I know it has to be done.

Along similar lines I was rubbish at music at school and never really had an interest. I started learning piano a few years ago, and now I'm studying for ABRSM Grade 7. I seemed to say to myself "Well I'm no good at this or that", but you never know until you give it a go.



For inspiration there is a book called "Peak: How All of Us Can Achieve ExtraordinaryThings", by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. It proposes that there is no such thing as latent talent, things are learnt, and that experts get expert by practicing what they learned. And once retired we all would have time for practice.



I'm still working so my piano is slow, but what I have learned so far would be very useful once I'm retired!

Triumph13

Marine_life wrote: »

What exactly is "living life to the full"?

A largely meaningless phrase, much loved by the gigantic industry out there devoted to persuading you to consume their products and services.

k6chris

Triumph13 wrote: »

A largely meaningless phrase, much loved by the gigantic industry out there devoted to persuading you to consume their products and services.

Apparently the more expensive the BMW I buy, the more I will be living life to the full, according to the salesman....

OldMusicGuy

Triumph13 wrote: »

A largely meaningless phrase, much loved by the gigantic industry out there devoted to persuading you to consume their products and services.

I can only agree with this.

My son studied psychology and I have been involved in behavioural economics and it was through those things that I realised how important different personality types are. We are all very different and your personality has a big impact on what you will enjoy doing, and thus what makes life fulfilling. People with personality traits like me don't like jumping out of aeroplanes or travelling to new places which many would regard as "living life to the full".

IMO no one can tell you what "living life to the full" means for you. We all need to understand what makes us tick, especially if we are thinking about a major change in life like retirement. I would recommend taking some of the online tests that use DSM IV and DSM V criteria and maybe reading a bit about personality psychology. I found it very interesting and it helped me understand why I enjoyed doing some things but not others. It also helped me understand why so many of the senior business people I worked with behaved the way they did (too many "dark triad" personalities.....).

Anonymous101

Triumph13 wrote: »

A largely meaningless phrase, much loved by the gigantic industry out there devoted to persuading you to consume their products and services.

I'd agree this is the most widely used meaning of the phase. If someone says that to me that's what I think they mean.

On the other hand I view "living life to the full" as a way of living my life as efficiently as possible to get the maximum enjoyment out of my life as a whole over the 80 years or so I'm expecting to live.

The main ways that this differs from how most people see it is taking a long term rather than short term view and not conforming to social pressures or norm's if I don't think that they are right for me. Too many people can't think beyond tomorrow and would rather over spend today at the expense of tomorrow. This is often justified with other phases like "I deserve it", "live for today", "you might not be here tomorrow" and "you can't take it with you". Using the car as an example lots of people will over spend on new or nearly new cars effectively borrowing money off their future selves in order to have a small amount of pleasure in the short term rather than a greater amount of pleasure over the longer term. I try to find a balance wherever possible to achieve the maximum enjoyment as a whole, that's living life to the full for me.

N.B. As OMG mentions the specific things which give us the pleasure, whether it be possessions, experiences or emotions are different for all of us but I think my principle of getting best value remains the same no matter what floats your boat.

OldMusicGuy

Anonymous101 wrote: »

N.B. As OMG mentions the specific things which give us the pleasure, whether it be possessions, experiences or emotions are different for all of us but I think my principle of getting best value remains the same no matter what floats your boat.

Not to a narcissist it wouldn't..... They would only care about how something makes them look, and if it reinforces their feelings of self-importance. Value would never come into it, it would have to be bigger and shinier than everyone else's. And a psychopath would probably exploit someone else to get their shiny new possessions......

Anonymous101

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

Not to a narcissist it wouldn't..... They would only care about how something makes them look, and if it reinforces their feelings of self-importance. Value would never come into it, it would have to be bigger and shinier than everyone else's. And a psychopath would probably exploit someone else to get their shiny new possessions......

I don't think I worded that as well as I could but I think that was what I was trying to get at. I was thinking that as we all derive our pleasure differently then value too is different to us all but the principle of getting the most pleasure over a lifetime still should be what "living life to the full" is for me.

Perhaps some personality types just can't think long term?

OldMusicGuy

Anonymous101 wrote: »

I don't think I worded that as well as I could but I think that was what I was trying to get at. I was thinking that as we all derive our pleasure differently then value too is different to us all but the principle of getting the most pleasure over a lifetime still should be what "living life to the full" is for me.

Perhaps some personality types just can't think long term?

Most primates struggle to think long term due to something called temporal discounting (we value pleasure now more than in the future), there's a whole field of interesting research called neuroeconomics that looks at this (based in part on experiments with monkeys). How many threads do we see on here from people with great DB pensions saying "I want to transfer it because I could get a big slug of money now, who cares about a nice secure pension in the future"?

Some personality types are also "thrill seekers" and thus need a hit of instant gratification compared to benefits in the future (a psychopathic trait), so looking for future benefits would not be something that overly concerned them.

I get what you are saying though. I suspect your perspective, like mine, is probably coloured by the fact that you are more than halfway through your life, so it's easier for you to look overall at what you have achieved/will achieve and come to a sense of balance/satisfaction. I could not have achieved the sense of completeness I have now even 10 years ago, because my circumstances were so different. So I think age plays a big part, hence the early-retirement wannabees need to be very aware of this.

PS There's nothing worse than a retired person with too much time on their hands that loves reading and researching all kinds of different stuff. Apologies if I am turning into a know-it-all (it is part of my personality traits btw....)