Raise the Hobby Bar: Why Your Happiness in Retirement Depends on More Than Money
Congratulations, you retired early. Now please find something to do.
TLDR: (Too Long Didn't Read)
Work slowly strangles your hobbies unless you defend them.
Hobbies = joy, mental clarity, purpose, health, and community.
My Camino story shows how hobbies can literally change your life trajectory.
Retirement magnifies your lifestyle — loneliness becomes dangerous if ignored.
Chronic loneliness increases early mortality by 26% (Nature Human Behaviour, 2024).
Early retirement only works if you build a meaningful, connected life.
Raise the hobby bar now — your future self will thank you.
Here’s something no one tells you when you’re grinding toward early retirement:
Work quietly strangles your hobbies.
Not in a dramatic, Hollywood-villain sort of way — more in a gentle, invisible,
“I’ll get back to that later…”
Until later becomes never.
You start adulthood with hobbies. You end up with obligations.
Between deadlines, commutes, exhaustion, and whatever your boss calls “team culture,” the things that once brought you joy get shoved into the corner like an unwanted office plant.
But here’s the truth:
If you’re aiming for early retirement — or already living it — hobbies aren’t optional.
They’re oxygen.
They’re structure.
They’re identity.
And they’re the thing that stops your brain from dissolving into a beige, formless blob.
What If You Don’t Have Any Hobbies?
Perfect.
You’re a clean slate.
A fresh notebook. A hard-reset human with unlimited potential.
But finding hobbies takes effort — the one thing we’re all allergic to.
You’ll need to put yourself out there.
You’ll need to show up even when your brain says “nah.”
You’ll need to go to meet-ups, join clubs, try classes, pick up new skills, and do things that feel slightly uncomfortable at first. Yes you need to work at this.
Some examples:
Physical hobbies:
Hiking, rock climbing, swimming, boxing, tennis, pickleball
→ Boost health, mood, create routine and build your social circle.
Mind hobbies:
Chess, language learning, painting, writing, visit museums.
→ Improve focus, cultivate creativity, strengthen mental clarity and grow your community.
Social hobbies:
Meetups, group sports, community events
→ Build friendships, support networks, and local integration (especially vital if you’ve moved countries)
Hobbies aren’t passive.
You earn them with action, but the pay off is happiness and connection.
An exhibition with friends followed by the best Venezuelan food in Spain!
Why Hobbies Matter (More Than You Think)
Hobbies give you:
Relaxation — real relaxation, not doom-scroll paralysis
Joy — that spark you forgot existed
Mental clarity — your brain finally gets breathing space from all the 9-5 bullsh*t.
Health — emotional, physical, mental (Total Health)
Identity — who you are when you’re not “your job”
Skipping hobbies is like skipping oil changes.
Eventually… something starts breaking down, usually it’s your mental or physical health.
My Story: The Camino, a new hobby and Life-Changing Lessons
I love big hikes.
A 10km walk is cute — sure — but what really gets my wheels spinning is a multi-week stroll. That’s why I carve out a few weeks each year to just walk. Spain’s Caminos are perfect for it.
The routine is simple and deeply addictive:
Wake up → backpack on → walk.
Every 10km → coffee + croissant + take photos.
Walk 20–30km → eat → shower → sleep like a tranquilised bear.
The sleep on long hikes? Unreal.
My mind goes quiet. My body collapses.
Ten hours of coma-level sleep every night.
It resets everything.
In 2019, I walked 800km with a 66-year-old man named Dave who was, medically speaking, held together by determination and duct tape:
Two bung knees
A partially severed pinky
Missing half a lung
A stomach acid condition needing daily meds
Three months post triple-hernia surgery
Physically? A wreck.
Mentally?
A beast.
He crushed 25km a day for 32 days.
Watching him, I had one thought:
“If Dave can do a Camino in that condition, I should be able to conquer the fu*king world.”
That first Camino and Dave nudged me onto the path that eventually led here —
retired at 35, living in Spain, writing this for you.
The lesson?
You don’t know which hobby will change your life.
Or who you’ll meet.
Or what version of yourself you’ll discover.
Hobbies aren’t pastimes.
They’re portals.
Retirement Exposes Your Social Life (Brutally)
When work ends… your job isn’t over.
You still need:
Structure
Challenge
People
Purpose
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Retirement magnifies your lifestyle.
If you’re lonely now, you’ll be very lonely later. And loneliness isn’t just sad — it’s deadly.
A major 2024 study in Nature Human Behaviour found that
chronic loneliness increases the risk of early mortality by up to 26% —
about the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
So if you wouldn’t chain-smoke your way through retirement,
don’t let loneliness do it for you.
This is why you must raise the hobby bar as you transition into early retirement.
Reading books alone won’t cut it. Neither will solo Netflix therapy.
You need:
Group activities
Classes
Clubs
Meetups
Learning new skills
Showing up consistently
The activity is just the medium.
The real benefit is the social network wrapped around it.
And for expats, nomads, and geo-arbitrage weirdos like us?
That network becomes your stability, identity, and happiness.
The Kick in the Ass (a Gentle One)
Early retirement isn’t about escaping work.
It’s about building a life worth waking up to.
Money gives you freedom.
Hobbies give you meaning.
People give you connection.
Put those three together and you get a life that feels full — not empty.
So here’s your challenge:
Pick one hobby today.
Book it.
Show up.
Start.
Your future retired self is depending on you.
Retirement doesn’t magically make your life better.
You do.
Now go lift the hobby bar.
🔥 If you want more freedom in your life…
Hobbies make life fun — but cashflow keeps the adventure going.
If you want to learn the same simple options strategy I use to fund my hikes, croissants, and early-retired lifestyle here in Spain, just message me “Course.”
And if you want to see real traders already using these strategies (plus get my trade ideas and sector snapshots), jump into my private Discord. Good consistent returns from minimal effort.
Freedom + fun = the whole point.
Cheers
Andy
Valencia
