Retirement Dreams

Should it be dreams or anxiousness. Feelings are never singular. They are a mixed bag, complex, hard to describe to others and limited to our own understanding.

Retirement is an inevitability though one may still choose to work in a flexi kind of way. However, it’s important to relax and enjoy me-time as much as be motivated to work till such time one does not feel fully saturated.

Continued working under pressure of stiff deadlines result in early burn outs. There are many avocations one cannot pursue because of time constraints.

Retirement is the time to enjoy the fruits of working life spent in earning and fulfilling familial duties.

Also to get time to follow your passion without worrying about pecuniary gains is  mind relaxing as well as stimulating.

Second innings of life needs to be well planned in terms of both fronts – financial as well as leisure.

How to spend time in a creative way so as not to feel under utilized after a long tenure of scheduled outputs and performances is in itself challenging as well as thought provoking.

Retirement planning, in addition to putting in place a regular source of income generation, should also necessarily include charting of activities wherein one can engage oneself meaningfully on a day to day basis.

Taking part in community programmes, following hobbies which were once renounced because of lack of time, getting enrolled in courses of interest and inclination, teaching the needy are some of the options.

Instead of feeling worthless, neglected and unproductive , the pursuit of constructive  happiness and enjoying a mentally and physically healthy life should become the motto.

So my present state is how to make the most of my retired life in a positive, creative, meaningful and memorable way. And all the feelings of pleasure full anticipation combined with worries of not having a regular work schedule and steady source of income.

Feelings float like clouds. Perhaps tomorrow the clouds will be browsing through another sky, another land , another thought zone. Feelings, like perspectives and perceptions, are not constant.

On one hand I am looking forward to some gained leisure, sedentary pace and spending time as per my own schedule learning, unlearning, slowing down, innovating, experimenting once again with life and experiencing the thrills of a spiritually uplifted existence, being grateful and peaceful. On the other, after four decades of workaholism, I dread the not doing the things I was used to doing for such a long period. With age I may have to forego so many which I once thought or think are indispensable for a happy and contented living.

It’s luxury to wallow in such undulating thoughts for a while yet at the same one should control excessive of everything.

So, till then….