I’m retired, so now what?
Like gazillions before me, I found myself asking this question.
One thing I know I DON’T want to do is NOTHING. I’ve seen it before. Guys that retire from 20+ years of military service and less than a year later, they’ve taken up residence at the VA Cemetery.
Why is that? I believe statistics show that the ones who die shortly after retiring were so wrapped up in their careers or jobs that it became their life. They knew nothing else and could not conceive of doing anything else. This is not exclusive to the military, by the way.
So, when that inevitable day arrived, it felt as though they had died. And unless a drastic psychological shift took place rather quickly, retirement became like a terminal, incurable illness. Actual death arrived soon after.
Somehow, in our society, retirement has taken on some glorified status of blissful idleness. You hear it all the time. “What are you going to do with all that free time?” “Won’t it be great not having to get up at a certain time to go to work?” and so on.
I got asked those questions and others like them a lot before I walked out for the last time. It became annoying.
I would make a joke out of it to cope . . .
“Oh, I’ll probably get up at the crack of noon, just in time to watch my favorite ‘educational program’ (Soap Opera) on TV”, I would say.
Or, “my ‘honey do list’ just got extended into infinity”, eliciting chuckles from most of the hen-pecked husbands I worked with.
Of course, true retirement should never be about idleness or a cessation of work. Retirement should be about transformation, transition, and the pursuit of different and exciting things that we’ve not had the time or opportunity to do yet.
Trying new things because now you have the time and resources to do new things. Things that maybe you’ve always wanted to do, but responsibilities and obligations prevented you from doing them. Things that we may have been able to incorporate into our lives at a much younger age if we had only known how.
The key is to have a plan. Take stock - What are you good at doing? What skills do you have? What would you love to do now that you couldn’t before? What sort of things does your personality lend itself to? I will write more about this in future posts.
Be intentional about it.
Why Life UnCorked
And that brings me to why I decided to launch Life UnCorked as my retirement plan.
We all have certain skills, desires, and unique personalities. For many of us (most of us?) our skills and desires get buried by the responsibilities of life.
Those crazy things we use to daydream about as kids have become all but forgotten. Not gone completely, just forgotten.
Like a modern submarine, our dreams surface for short periods to refuel or resupply and then submerge again into the blackness of the subconscious sea for months, sometimes years at a time.
If that has been your experience, then retirement is the perfect time to bring them to the surface, permanently this time, and go for it.
You have the time and the maturity now and probably the knowledge to be more successful than ever.
My dream since I can remember has been to write. I’ve dabbled at it off and on for years. But, then other things crowded it out.
I also dreamed of my life being an inspiration to others.
Life UnCorked is the vehicle I have chosen to combine these two pursuits. My big “Show Biz break” as the old saying goes. All the things I’ve wanted to write about for years.
Of course, there will be spin-offs, but this will be the main focus for reaching out, for making a difference, for doing what I’ve always wanted to do.
So, what is it that you want to do with your retirement years? Let’s have a discussion and encourage each other to be different, do great things, and enjoy the fruits of a life well lived.
Thank you for reading my inaugural post on Life UnCorked. Each week, you can expect new content to be UnCorked to your inbox. So glad you have decided to come along for the journey.