Retirement Gives You Time

After working for forty or more hours per week for the past forty years, retirees are faced with more free time than they ever had before.  Retirement gives you time that you never had before.  Time for hobbies and interests, time for travel visiting friends.  Time for all the things you had to put aside while you were busy making a living.  For some people, like me, it’s a dream come true but, for others, the question of how to fill those hours of unscheduled time becomes something of a problem.

If you’ve looked around this website at all, you know I love retirement and all of the freedom that it brings me.  I was surprised and disappointed whenever I met someone who said that retirement was boring.  In fact, for some of those people, retirement was so boring that they went back to work.  I guess if you really were in love with your job, and had no other interests, going back to work is an option.  I have to tell you that it would be the last thing that I want to do.  Life is just too interesting to get bored.  Although I never liked school, I loved to learn.  Let me clarify that a bit by saying that I loved to learn about things that interested me.  Retirement can be a lifelong learning experience with some really great added benefits: no homework, no tests and no term papers.  You can learn at your own pace in the manner that you desire.

Retirement gives you time to do what you want to do

I have found that traveling is one of the best ways to learn for me.  Experiencing new things and seeing them firsthand makes all the difference in the world.  I love history and visiting some of the places we’ve traveled to brings the events and civilizations of the past alive in a way that no history book could.  Seeing the places where events changed the world makes everything so much more real.  Reaching this stage in our lives makes you realize how much history you lived through.  I am well aware of how old I am but I lived through the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, landing on the moon and countless other events that you can recall like it was yesterday.  Through reading and watching documentaries you can experience these events again but being able to go to a place where history occurred is something that I truly appreciate.  I remember very distinctly the day President Kennedy was shot but I never imagined I would someday look through the window of the room where the assassin fired his shot and changed history forever.

Retirement gives you time not only to visit the places you have heard and read about but it allows you to delve deeper into the subjects that you’re interested in.  I can’t read enough about Lincoln and have visited just about every site that there is to see.  Walking from his home in Springfield to the law office he shared with his partner William Herndon was something that I always wanted to do because that’s how he got work each day.  It may sound crazy to anyone else, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  And, if you spend some time thinking, I’ll bet there are some things that you’d like to do that you’ve all but given up on.

Retirement gives you time to do all of these things and that’s a true gift.  It’s something too many people take for granted.  Our doctor is visiting every baseball stadium and seeing a game.  He’s a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and goes there every year.  He absolutely loves baseball and is a walking record book.  His whole demeanor changes when he’s talking about baseball.  It is one of his great passions.  What passions do you have?  What memories do you have that need to come alive again?  Retirement gives you time to explore the things that you always wanted to know more about.  It gives you time to find new interests and hobbies.

Are you a frustrated writer, painter or architect?  Go and pursue that dream because it’s never too late.  Some of the greatest feelings of fulfillment are when you create something that you’re proud of.  You don’t do it for the money – you do it for yourself.  I know a few people who have their own artwork on the walls.  One of our friends has some incredible pictures that he’s taken himself decorating his living room.  He is a gifted photographer who knows how to capture an emotion through the lens of a camera.  When I asked him if he ever tried to sell any of his pictures, he just smiled.  “Why would I do that?” he said, “it would spoil all the fun.”  More than anything else, retirement gives you time to have fun.

If you’re not sure how you’d like to spend your time, look around this website.  I enjoy this time of my life so much, I’ve written about quite a few ways people are making the most of their golden years.  Unlike my friend, the photographer, some of them are making money with their hobby.  Go ahead and explore the possibilities.  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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