I had to retire at 50 because of my health or die then

 Many people do not have the luxury of retiring and so in my position they just would have died because they couldn't work during the next two years of my life at least.

I find that the 1st 5 years of retirement are the hardest to get used to. It's sort of like going back to Grade School, Junior High School and High School where you have 2 weeks of Christmas Vacation, a week off at Easter, and often 11 weeks off during the summer.

Now imagine a summer or winter vacation or Easter vacation that NEVER ENDS.

For some of you like myself you might like this never ending vacation. But, for the workaholics among you this could be hell because you always have to be busy all the time.

However, for me, I have many many things I'm interested in and I never really get bored that much.

However after being retired mostly since 1998 I feel a little in an ivory Tower in some ways. In other words I'm not suffering in the world like most people are from birth to retirement. And some people can never retire. My son was talking to me about someone at his work had to work to 86 years old so basically they died working. To me, this is very sad. However, it is likely the norm in most of the world where if you can't make money you die because there is no Social Security or Medicare in most countries on earth.

So, I feel myself very lucky that first I was allowed to live and not die at 50 and that somehow we managed for me to retire when I did. 

For example, my father retired at age 65 and then died by age 69 which I thought was kind of sad. And on one level retiring likely had something to do with his death. I think he was a workaholic and he might have survived longer if he kept working.

So, if you have the money to retire it's sort of important to know yourself well enough how you might do in retirement if you can afford to retire.

Good Luck, I hope one day you can retire too and be happy being retired.

So far, I have been retired mostly since 1998. or around 25 plus years so far.

Getting used to retirement and embracing the good things about it often leads to living to 90 or 100 by the way worldwide.