Retirement Meaning Increases Retirement Happiness

Using Strengths in Service to Something Important

happiness? The Positive Psychology folks are saying that

meaning is a key piece of the retirement happiness puzzle.

But how do you get meaning? You must use your abilities in

service to something larger than yourself. Some action is

required here. (A donation will not provide quite the level of

happiness or satisfaction that effort does.)

What is "larger" than yourself? The answer to that question is

totally up to you, depending on your belief system. Think the

environment, literacy, missionary work, men's work, volunteering

your services in prisons, jails, or overseas, Habitat for

Humanity, planting trees, cleaning up a bike path, or planting

flowers along a bike path, AA 12th Step Work, volunteer work at

a domestic violence shelter, for example.

The 12th step of the AA program is a good example, I believe, of

service. It reads something like, "Having had a spiritual

awakening as the result of these steps, we carried the message

to the still suffering alcoholic." The carrying happens when

their is a call from an alcoholic, so it is not always

convenient, and the carrying may continue for awhile, as that

newcomer gets established. But that is the key to ongoing

sobriety, giving away what has been given, on the Higher Power"s

schedule.

Speaking for myself, as a counselor, who works with perpatrators

of domestic violence, I have toyed for quite awhile with

teaching my clients about building an online business. Many of

them have been left behind economically, and a website may be a

way to overcome lack of education, credentials, even an

extensive criminal past. I have also thought about bringing

those skills to women in the shelter, who may have been isolated

and whose employment skills are outdated or whose credentials

are minimal.