I was made voluntarily redundant into early retirement in my early 50s. Would I have liked to work longer, you bet! I went not because I wanted to, but because it was in my best interests. My employer was halving its workforce and was offering very advantageous redundancy terms if you went. Over 50s got an immediate pension without reduction for taking it early. Staying could mean later compulsory redundancy and poorer redundancy terms. I tried to get another job, but soon discovered over 50s are unemployable (this was the mid 1990s). Fortunately I had my pension, not huge, but DH worked until retirement age.
The move from work was seamless, retraining grants were available under the redundancy scheme so I took one and went back to university for a year to do a course I had always wanted to do. Also between agreeing redundancy, six months before I quit and the completion of my course, my mother and her sister, to whom I was close, both died suddenly, also one of DH's aunts, where we were the executors of her estate, and it was a messy time consuming job. We also moved house, already planned, but accelerated by seeing the house we wanted. I didn't really have time to think about the transition.
And so it has gone on. DH and I have always had a lot of outside interests and now we have more time for them. DH is a chartered engineer and when he retired he became a self-employed consultant. As a result he has worked off and on as he chooses ever since retirement. Plus, of course, we now have grand children.
We are very lucky that we were always in well-paid employment before we retired and in good occupational pension schemes - DH has continued working so we have, so far, seen no diminution of our income. I know that has not been the case for so many managing on just the state pension or only a little more and that must inevitably be reflected in one's retirement experiences. We are also both still in good health.
What is the greatest blessing of retirement? No longer fearing redundancy and the loss of a job and income. My state pension and occupational pension go into my bank account regularly every month. Nothing is 100 % secure, but a pension is as secure an income as you can get.