Reflections on retirement–then and now

Sitting on my back porch, watching the golf course go by, enjoying retirement. (Photo by K)

This is a bit of a cheat, but I like it and it’s my blog. You know how Facebook will play like your memory, revisiting things you posted in the past? I posted what follows shortly after I retired. I want to repost it, along with comments on how it looks five years later. (Comments in italics)

To my friends (if you’re interested): my Top Ten reflections on retirement (after three and a half months):

1) Just because you play golf a lot doesn’t mean you’ll get better. (Actually, I have gotten better—probably because I don’t care about getting better as much as I used to—golf is a spiritual exercise.)

2) Your significant other is the most important relationship you have on the planet–you cannot possibly put too much energy into it. (True, true, true. Unfortunately, it is also the easiest relationship to take for granted. K and I seem to float around each other as much as we connect. I have to put more energy into her.)

3) Good health is paramount to enjoying life. Diet, exercise and bad habits are daily battlefields that have to be addressed. I wish I had realized this earlier. (Haha. What I’ve realized is the battlefield is a constant and will be for the rest of my days. It’s a battle worth fighting, though.)

4) Your conscious mind retires before your subconscious does…(I have had at least 30 school anxiety dreams since retirement day!) (Huge improvement here, though they haven’t gone completely away. I have as many dreams about golf and about my family as I do about school these days.)

5) Alarm clocks suck (the life out of you). (I’ll let this one stand on its own.)

6) Value and nurture your pre-retirement relationships–you are retiring, not withdrawing. (If it wasn’t for social media, you, my beloved friends from the past, would have mostly disappeared. How sad! Time marches forward, not back.)

7) Equally important: put energy into building post-retirement relationships–there are so many interesting people in this world! (Between golf and church, this has happened pretty organically for me.)

8) Family, family, family: duh. (Whether you are a Christian or any other faith, I’d be shocked if you pray about anything more than your family.)

9) If spiritual things have not become more important and more meaningful to you, you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. (Or so I believe.)

10) Pay attention: I suspect that God (or the universe or whatever you want to call it) is trying to speak to us all the time–we are born deaf. (His voice is just so subtle…and I create so much internal dissonance. But I’m more convinced than ever that He is speaking…dear Lord, teach me to listen.)

p.s.–This is what I’ve observed, not necessarily what I practice–but I’m trying!

p.p.s.—I love retirement—people are surprised when I tell them this is my favorite period of my life. I can only come up with two reasons: A) my two biggest stress producers, money and time, don’t have much sway over me; and B) I vowed I was going to make my relationship with God my first priority when I retired. I have never looked back.

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