Another Year Is Over

Another year is over.  The holiday season is always time to look back on the past year and forward to the next.  We hope last year was a good year for you and we hope you’re determined to make next year even better.  Nothing happens by accident so it’s usually worthwhile to spend some time planning and thinking about the things you want to accomplish.  I’ve read a lot of self-help books during my life and found them to be very useful and challenging.  One of the exercises that was always recommended was to make goals for the coming year and I came to appreciate the wisdom of doing exactly that each year for more than three decades.  It all begins with some reflection time and tapping into your innermost desires.  This is especially true after you retire and have stopped working for someone else.

Most people come to New Year’s Eve with their focus on what kind of champagne to buy as the clock strikes midnight and another year is over.  I have found this time to be an opportunity to become a little reflective about where I am in my life and what I would still like to accomplish.  During my working years my goals were focused on what I needed to do within my job and what would benefit the company but, as I approached retirement, I realized the goal making process could be a lot more fun because it would be based on what I still wanted to accomplish before my time was finished.  It got me very excited to think about all the possibilities and I hope that can happen to you.  It shouldn’t be just turning the calendar and noting the fact that another year is over.  No, it should be more like figuring out what to do with the coming year to make it as exciting as possible.  For me, it begins with travel.

Another year is over, but a new one is just beginning.

From the time I was in elementary school I had a list of places I wanted to see. Most of them dealt with history which I have always found interesting.  Studying the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome filled me with stories of incredible intrigue and mystery.  The secrets of the pyramids and the stories of the Greek gods were like fairy tales.  The structures built in Greece and Rome were places you saw in pictures in movies, not places that could actually be visited and seen for yourself.  I still remember walking around Athens and tracing the steps of Socrates and Plato and realizing I had finally achieved one of my dreams.  That’s what travel has always been for me, and I hope that excitement and anticipation will always be there.  It should never be just crossing something off a to-do list.  That loses some of the magic.  It’s like turning the calendar without thought because another year is over and it’s time to move on.  So far, we have looked back at every year with some great memories about where we’ve been.  For the past ten years friends from the United Kingdom have been sending us calendars with all the places we’ve shared with them.  We met them about fifteen years ago and have traveled with them more than a dozen times.  Travel is a great way to see the world, make new friends and learn about new cultures and food.  You start to see that people everywhere want the same basic things: a safe place to earn a living and to raise a family.

But a new year is also a chance to set some personal goals to learn and try new things.  There are so many interesting topics and subjects, the problem for me is to not spread myself too thin.  There’s always a new book and new information being discovered about some historical events.  It’s always amazing to see what’s going on at places like Monticello, Montpelier or Mount Vernon.  There is almost always an archeological project going on and some new discovery being made.  It wasn’t long ago that they found the bedroom of Sally Hemmings at Monticello and it provided new insights into the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave mistress.

You can always find something new to learn and this could be the year you take up an instrument, publish a book, start a website or start your own business.  There is no limit to what you can do.  Visit every baseball park or football stadium.  Play the Pebble Beach Golf Course or take a trip on the Orient Express.  See the Greek islands or the Carpathian Mountains with a stop over at Castle Dracula.  Yes, another year is over, but a new one is beginning and you can make next year the best ever.  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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