Post Retirement to Fashion Your Skills

This blog you’re reading is being written because this is my post retirement job.  It’s kind of funny too because I graduated with an English degree and never used it until I retired.

When I was young, I drifted like a lot of people.  I didn’t get serious about having a career until I was 27.  At that time I got a job working in a lumber yard.  It was hard work.  I remember on one occasion I was putting together, on a forklift, part of a housing package I had sold.  I was muscling 2 by 16 by 20’s onto the forks of a forklift.  It was freezing cold, yet I was sweating.  On the end of my cap, a sweat drop had frozen into an icicle.  I looked at that icicle cross eyed and thought, “If I get out of this, I’ll never goof off again.”

I had been a goof off when I was young.  I had a free college education opportunity which my Dad paid for and at 21 years of age he had invited me to join the Navy.  My grades were a disaster.   In the Navy, I excelled in what I did, but never made rank.  I was only in there as a passing thing, and didn’t  take advantage of the free things the Navy offered to really excell.  The job I had told it all.  If United Airlines went to war with American Airlines, I’d have been snapped up for a job in  a minute. My rate was as a weapon’s technician for aircraft.  I repaired the weapons systems for ground attack planes.  It had no useful civilian application though.  I was still in practice a goof off.

But in that lumber yard, something changed.  I had had an idea what I wanted to do as a career path; sure, I had been doing a plan a friend of mine did.  This was to move up and then move lateral.  Start anywhere as long as you could jump laterally to a better job until you landed the job you wanted.  I now realized I needed more fire power.  I needed a degree.

Eventually, I made it back to college, and this time I really took it seriously.  After graduation, with my job experience and a degree, I got a good job that allowed me to retire at 50.

So, if you are retired and need or just want a job, where do you start?   For one thing, if you are fortunate enough to have saved a nest egg or have Social Security without debt, you're in better shape than younger people.  You don’t need to make a fortune to get by.  Therefore, take an inventory of your skills to see where you fit in.  If you have writing skills, for instance, you can hone them. 

There are websites that will pay you for what you write.  So join writing sites that pay for blogs, articles or stories.   For instance there are sites that pay for mystery stories for school children to solve.

If you are on Social Security, your medical is paid for and you have an income.  You can practice your skills by writing and sending what you have written in to on-line publications or magazines.  Maybe write that novel you always wanted to write.

Even if you are a minor success, on Social Security, you don’t need to make a fortune and you may make your dreams come true and perhaps follow a path you wanted to follow in your youth.  The sites for writing work can be found on any search engine.  Join one site and because of web site networking, more offers will come in your e-mail.

What are you doing in your retirement?