[greggman2]

I'm a 1000x more productive when I have a support group that I spend time lots of time with. Usually that support group comes from being at the office with co-workers. If I retired and didn't find a support group I'm pretty confident I would not stay motivated.

It's not just having people around either, it's shared goals and shared responsibilities. I'm more productive when I know others need my work. We could be collaborating on a game at a game jam where the game designer needs me to add some new settings they can tweak and the artist needs a way to get some new data in the game and iterate. That pressure is very motivating for me.

But, for me at least, it's both the feeling of wanting to provide solutions for other team members, the feeling of a shared goal, and the feeling of camaraderie I get from actually being with people (vs being remote)

I've been lucky the majority of projects I worked on were things I wanted to work on and see succeed. I can imagine lots of projects where I wouldn't feel that.

[saiya-jin]

What you describe sounds roughly similar to what parent op is warning about. Being reliant on external forces for your own happiness / fulfillment will probably suck in retirement - people generally lose friends, not gain them over the years. Find something that motivates you on its own, regardless of anybody's else involvement.

For me that would be travelling, hiking, and generally being in nature - but this requires at least OKish health for the age, which might or might not be there later. Reality is, we mostly don't know how things (and us) will turn up later in life, and if we end up in good spot it will be mostly by sheer luck.

[tluyben2]

Besides really bad ailments which restrict you to a bed or location or when your brain gives out (the worst option, but yes, it of course happens; stroke, dementia, etc), I try to build on two things; a) hiking/nature b) brainy hobbies and I try to combine them. I read/write parts while hiking, I program parts while hiking, I interact with my friends while in the middle of rainforests etc. If the a) falls away because of an ailment, I am perfectly happy doing b). I consciously try to prepare for the future as I have seen too many unhappy people and that really is so not needed.

[greggman2]

the advice I lean toward is that you need to make an effort to have strong relationships and people in your life rather than find ways to learn to be strong without them.

[saiya-jin]

What about both of those? Sounds like a win-win scenario