Dear LPG, 

While there is much to be unhappy about, we are fortunate in our part of the world because we have many activities and pastimes to choose from regarding our hobbies and interests.   However, it seems ironic that the average pensioners of our era have often spent practically all of their adult working lives missing out on many of the aspirations we had planned as teenagers.  Some of us remember that it might be good to return to them in retirement only to give up again before we know it. 

I am talking about our ultimate ambitions for our lives or what our younger selves planned our older selves to become all that time ago. Still, whenever we looked forward to seeing ourselves successfully achieving those personal goals, they so often got altered by the people we met, the places we went to and the experiences that we stumbled upon during the years between then and now.

For all that, it is essential to remember that retirement is when we need to find something that interests us now.  It might be that nothing inspires which is perhaps the time when we might think back and revert to those more personal hopes that we each once had, because it is a time when, for most of us, making a living has stopped being the obstacle to embracing at least one project we wanted to follow as far as we can (health and finances permitting).

Having said that, and in my experience, the biggest stumbling block for us oldies who take the time to follow that dream is the people around us who show no interest in what we are doing because, when the mini victories happen on our journey, the human thing to do is share your achievements with friends.  It is often the case that those friends are not necessarily interested in the minor details of your success, and a repeatedly lukewarm reaction to your important news about what you are up to can dampen your enthusiasm when it comes to carrying on.

Looking at it from the other point of view, many of us will have a friend who prattles on and on about some activity that they are involved in and, with the best will in the world, we have little interest in hearing any more about, while we each also have an interest or venture that we find absorbing and that we worry about sharing with our friends for fear that we will bore them.

The answer has to be that we all need to be more aware of making sure that we show a level of interest and encouragement that is not required to discourage the enterprise of those around us.   When our friends want to talk, we truly need to listen enough to show sufficient interest not to dampen their momentum. At the same time, it is also essential that we try our best not to overshare our aspirations.

Positive feedback from those around you must be the most significant reinforcement to keep all those personal projects going.

LY, Lewisham.