Mini-retirment

Came across an article in US News and World Report that I found somewhat uplifting, or at least it didn't depress the hell out of me. Titled "5 Alternatives to Traditional Retirement" it outlined other ways of viewing one's work life besides the retire at 65 scenario. Which is good, because I need som way to reframe things. The five are: sabbaticals, mini-retirmements, focused career breaks, second careers and entrepreneurship. They are fairly self-descriptive, although some of the time frames involved seem laughable. One software engineer is credited with taking two "mini-retirements" of 3 months in India. Gee, back in academia we called those summer vacations. I guess if I had to classify what I am doing I would put it as a sort of mini-retirment to ultimately be combined with a second career, although right now it looks a lot like floundering. But how you frame things is important, and the article in fact gave me a psychological boost because it did allow me to begin to reframe things, altough I don't know if that will help how I view this wasted past year. One thing at a time I guess.