Beautiful TasmaniaYes, retirement is a stage eagerly anticipated when you are young and stuck with the mundane routine of waking up, going to work, going home, watching tv and going to bed. This is the cycle most people are in, from the day they begin working until the day they retire.
This phase of life is where one is concerned with building: building a career, building a home for your family and funding a nestegg for your children's education and your retirement. It takes up the bulk of your time and unless you are careful about balancing the scales of family life and work, you may find yourself in circumstances that you never believed would happen to you.
When retirement is upon you, what then? The day before, your colleagues feted you and gave you a rousing sendoff. The following day, it dawns upon you that you no longer need to show up at the office that has been your second home, you no longer have to do what you have been doing for the many years past. So what do you do?
Aha, you savour a leisurely breakfast with your spouse if he or she is also retired. Otherwise, it is breakfast all by yourself. Where are the rest of the family? Perhaps you have a child away at college, another who is married and staying somewhere else. You wander through the house and settle down with the news online or turn the pages of the local newspaper.
Come lunchtime, you go out for a bite or rustle up something for yourself in the kitchen. Hang it all, everything is so quiet! You turn on the tv but there is nothing that really catches your interest at this time. Time, time is hanging on your hands. You feel quite lost. Well, perhaps a drive to the nearest shopping mall to window shop and while away the time. Then home for an afternoon nap which you've never had previously.
On waking up, you look at the clock. Ah, soon your spouse will be back. When the key turns in the lock, you are there to greet him/her. So eager are you for company that you chatter nineteen to the dozen without giving the other party a chance to speak. Yabber, yabber, yabber....
Dinner time comes and goes. You watch tv and it's then bedtime. What a relief! Until the next day!!!
On the other hand, some people will say that they can do the things they never had time to do when they were still working. Ah, retirement's the time to read all the books that have been piling up, do the crossword puzzles, create patchwork quilts, go to the cinema, catch up with friends or even take up a new hobby.
This phase of life is where one is concerned with building: building a career, building a home for your family and funding a nestegg for your children's education and your retirement. It takes up the bulk of your time and unless you are careful about balancing the scales of family life and work, you may find yourself in circumstances that you never believed would happen to you.
When retirement is upon you, what then? The day before, your colleagues feted you and gave you a rousing sendoff. The following day, it dawns upon you that you no longer need to show up at the office that has been your second home, you no longer have to do what you have been doing for the many years past. So what do you do?
Aha, you savour a leisurely breakfast with your spouse if he or she is also retired. Otherwise, it is breakfast all by yourself. Where are the rest of the family? Perhaps you have a child away at college, another who is married and staying somewhere else. You wander through the house and settle down with the news online or turn the pages of the local newspaper.
Come lunchtime, you go out for a bite or rustle up something for yourself in the kitchen. Hang it all, everything is so quiet! You turn on the tv but there is nothing that really catches your interest at this time. Time, time is hanging on your hands. You feel quite lost. Well, perhaps a drive to the nearest shopping mall to window shop and while away the time. Then home for an afternoon nap which you've never had previously.
On waking up, you look at the clock. Ah, soon your spouse will be back. When the key turns in the lock, you are there to greet him/her. So eager are you for company that you chatter nineteen to the dozen without giving the other party a chance to speak. Yabber, yabber, yabber....
Dinner time comes and goes. You watch tv and it's then bedtime. What a relief! Until the next day!!!
On the other hand, some people will say that they can do the things they never had time to do when they were still working. Ah, retirement's the time to read all the books that have been piling up, do the crossword puzzles, create patchwork quilts, go to the cinema, catch up with friends or even take up a new hobby.
Well, to each his own. Me, after the initial withdrawal symptoms, I adjusted to a life that is less of a treadmill. Now I'm hooked to the nightly soap operas on tv. By day, I read books that I've not had time to read while listening to my favourite music and in the late afternoon fetch my grandchildren home from school. In the evenings I cook dinner and in the early mornings, enjoy a round of golf. I visit my children who are away from home every couple of months and if I feel like it, I opt for a holiday tour to some place I've not been before. That's life!! I've earned my retirement like most of you and am enjoying it. I hope you're enjoying yours too.
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