Retirement lessons

Wherever you are on the continuum of retirement; from never going to retire, 20 years away or you retired five years ago, be aware of the parallel universe of your dreams and plans, day to day and seeking and enjoying a purposeful and rewarding experience.

There are many lessons to learn from others who have gone before, and while you are in the middle of your journey, you may seek or stumble upon those lessons to fill a void, or chart a new direction.

As I reflect and adapt to a different scorecard or routine, the art of relaxing and being immersed in a different venue from daily outside work, present wonderful opportunities.

Being between outlets/vocations and not wanting to commit to full time, enjoying a love/hate relationship with no half to do's; I found myself saying I still had two to three hours a day to contribute or to invest in purposeful activities/work.

20 hours a week or approximately 1000 hours per year.

There are books about learning new skills if you invest 1000 to 2000 hours per year making the most of your day to day and realizing you have accomplished something; "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.

CS Lewis talks about feeling that day to day nothing changes, but as you look back over a period of time or years, you find everything has changed.

While I was contemplating this, I came across an article dated April 8th, 2025, written in Kiplinger's personal finance section by Jacob Schroeder, it's called, the Rule of 1000 hours.

Essentially, talking about this very thing and by doing so bringing intention and clarity to your day.

He says that many think they're going to be something different in retirement; chances are they're not. Think about it today, put some practices in place, have a sense of what it is you hope to do with both leisure and purpose.

Make your own decision: there are some professions where people do not retire, in fact, they make life long commitments ,albeit an exclusive example would be a newly appointed Pope at age 69 or Supreme Court justices appointed for life, there are many examples of people who enjoy a profession or work and being 'productive' indefinitely, taking some time for leisure and having the contrast be that much sweeter.

So, those are several topics for future blogs.

It may be better for one to think more about their purpose and productive use of one's time regardless of how many hours spent on it ; and the leisure part of one's day might be more easily come by.

One key element of a productive/enjoyable/rewarding current and future life is continuous learning and being open to new ideas, being open to learning regularly, seeking new information to develop and improve.

Ok, back to pickleball ......