How productive are you in your retirement?

Seems like an odd question but, for many of us, is it?

I was having coffee with a friend who, like me, had been in business for a long time. I had notched up 27 years in my own speakers and trainers bureau. She was decrying the fact that unless she had been productive during the day ie working voluntarily on Committee papers and correspondence etc. she often felt guilty. Mea culpa! I guess that’s what happens when ‘being productive’ is drilled into you by an ever-demanding bank balance!

Much depends on how you qualify the word ‘productive’. It isn’t about being paid, it’s about achieving an outcome. For some, going for bush walks is a productive use of time and can result in better health and outlook.

For me it’s producing books, hosting a weekly radio arts program and contributing to a couple of arts committees and unless I am actively ‘employed’ on those projects I feel as though I have not been particularly productive.

I guess that’s the reason why my friend and I don’t particularly like the word ‘retirement’.
Too often it is used to describe retiring from life itself. Personally it’s about my being ‘meaningfully employed’ in my ‘third age’.
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And you?