Create Your Own World

It’s scary to look at the headlines sometimes.  Fires, floods, droughts, heat waves, wars, bombings, plane crashes and random violence can create a lot of stress if that’s all you focus on.  I have learned that it is very beneficial if you can create your own world.  Everyone, at every stage of life, should try to have a place to escape to but I think it might be a little easier to create your own world in retirement.  The great people in life have always been able to do that.

If you’ve spent any time on these pages, you know that I love history and l love to read the biographies of the great people who have shaped our nation and our world.  Even better than reading about these great people, I love to visit their homes whenever possible because, in a very real sense, their home was meant to be an escape, a little world that they created.  A place where they could escape and unwind and leave the pressures of the world for just a little bit of peace.  You see it in the great homes of our founding fathers.  You can easily picture George Washington sitting on the back porch of his magnificent home of Mount Vernon and gazing upon the Potomac River.  As he fought the battles of the Revolution and sacrificed eight years of his life as our country’s first President, Mount Vernon was the place he longed for.  He had created his own world here and just the thought of it brought him a tremendous feeling of peace.

Thomas Jefferson did the same thing at Monticello although in a much different way.  Mr. Jefferson’s escape was into a world of books and architecture and designed his magnificent home down to the last detail.  Always an extravagant spender, he ended up paying off some of his debts by selling his books to create the Library of Congress.  Jefferson was a master at creating his own world.  When you study history, you see many leaders using their home as an escape.  Winston Churchill used Chartwell as his place of escape and even built a studio where he could paint and relax.  Franklin D. Roosevelt said the Hudson Valley gave him strength, and you can still visit his home in Hyde Park.  In fact, both Franklin and Eleanor had their “escape” properties on the estate.  Top Cottage and Val Kill can still be toured to see how the President and First Lady escaped the pressures of war.

You create your own world in retirement and have fun doing it.

You can create your own world as well and it doesn’t have to be done by building a mansion.  You can escape the pressures of the world in any number of ways, and it can be very interesting to see what works for you.  It can be as simple as reading a novel or doing a jigsaw puzzle, but I have the best ways to truly escape and recharge your batteries usually have a creative process attached to it.  When you hear a gardener explain their latest project and see the care with which they planned out where to plant their trees or shrubs or plants, you realize they are in their own world, and they have enjoyed creating it down to the last detail.  Why don’t you create your own world?  It can be big or small as you want and the most important part of it all is that it is YOUR creation.  There is something almost sacred about the creative process.  When you’re in the middle of a project you get an energy and inspiration that can be almost mystical.  We often overlook the fact that even a mundane task can have more creativity than we imagine.  Watch an artisan build a piece of furniture and you’ll see someone who is totally lost in his own creativity.  They look at each finished piece of furniture almost like one of their children.  Something happened to them during the design and construction process and it’s hard to describe with words.  You can create your own world if you want to.

One of the best examples is of the many gifted writers who created a world that invites others to live in it.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did it with Sherlock Holmes and we are still enjoying it to this day.  The world of Ebeneezer Scrooge, created by Charles Dickens, is brought to life every Christmas.  And do you think they will ever stop performing Shakespeare?  Of course not.  Now I know what you’re saying.  You’re saying that you don’t have that kind of talent and I will fire right back by asking: how do you know if you don’t try?  And I will also say that trying is half the fun and very much worth the effort.  I’ve two novels and probably a dozen stories that will never be published but I am very happy that I wrote them.  I wrote most of them when I was traveling and sitting in a hotel room by myself.  I created my own world and looked forward to escaping to it each evening after work.  After all, it was better than watching the news or anything else on television where the dark side of the world became all too real.

You can create your own world in retirement and have the time of your life doing it.  Find something you’re interested in.  Start a hobby, learn a skill or take a trip and write about.  Become a writer and create a story with a character that will capture the imagination of your reader.  In the process, you might find that story or character capturing your own imagination and have no idea where it will lead.  That’s part of the fun of this journey we call retirement.  It’s time to get busy.  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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