Finding fulfilment in retirement

The writer (third from left) has spent the last 18 years of her retirement performing various acts of community service. Here she is with residents of an assisted care home that her organisation provided food and essential items to. — Photos: LILY FU

I retired in 2005 after teaching at the same school for 30 years. The first two years of retirement were blissful. I enjoyed the freedom of not having to wake up at dawn to get to work by 7am.

I had plenty of time on my hands to do what I wanted, go where and when the travel bug took me. After two years of self-indulgence, a certain emptiness, even boredom, started to creep in. I simply couldn’t see myself spending the next 20 years or more aimlessly drifting from one interest to another, searching for something that would ignite a passion in me.