Retirement is About Keeping Active

One of my favorite things in life is when someone tells me they are having so much fun in retirement they don’t know when they ever found the time to work.  That’s what retirement should be about.  Retirement is about keeping active and always planning the next adventure.  There are just too many new things to see and do in life.  Memories are wonderful but you should never stop making new ones.  One of our friends was enjoying her retirement for the most part and was fairly content with how her life was proceeding.  She decided to look into a new 55 and over community and fell in love with a house that was on one level.  She had had a knee replaced and her stairs were a bit of a problem.  She decided to buy the house and, although she was happy before, it’s like she’s been taking happy pills every time we talk to her.  There is nothing better than hearing a story like that.  She has a new circle of friends and has become somewhat of an ambassador for her new community.  Within a year three of her friends decided to move there and she has become the coordinator for card games.  She couldn’t be happier and it’s all because of becoming active in a new community.

Your Life Changes When You Learn That Retirement is About Keeping Active

But you don’t have to do anything as drastic as moving to enhance your lifestyle.  Retirement is about keeping active in a variety of ways.  We moved in our retirement as well and did not know anyone in our new location.  Worse than that, we moved in just as the pandemic was taking hold of our country.  For over a year we were basically confined to our house just like everyone else.  But we kept active by planning out our new home and ordering things online when we could.  It was almost a forced activity, but it worked.  When you make changes in your life, for whatever reason, it forces you to re-evaluate what is working in your life and what isn’t.  It helps you to remember what’s important and what makes you happy.  As with most people, we missed contact with family and friends and, as soon as we were able, we scheduled events to make up for lost time.  We realized when the world shut down how important all of our activities were.  It reinforced something we already knew - finding happiness in retirement is about keeping active.

One of our most enjoyable activities was put on hold and that was the traveling that we had grown accustomed to.  We had spent our first two years of retirement traveling throughout the country and had enjoyed every minute of it.  We were able to escape the cold winters up north and journey down to the south and out to the Texas coast during our first winter and enjoyed every place we stayed.  The second winter was just as good.  We started in Arizona, went out to southern California and then up the coast to San Francisco before making our way over to Lake Tahoe and then down to Las Vegas before making our way across the Midwest to find our way back home.  We realized that we really liked this lifestyle.  A new place every week with new restaurants to try and new things to see was more appealing to us than having a second home for the winter.  While some people like the comfort of going to a place they know each winter, the worries of a second home when you’re not around was not something we were comfortable with.  As we vacationed with our children during our working years, we acquired some weeks of timeshare that we now used during our retirement.  For us, it has worked out extremely well, but we know that’s not everyone’s choice.  It’s expensive but so is a second home and, with the freedom to visit someplace different every year, it fulfills our need for new things and new places because, for us, retirement is about keeping active.  It also opens up some possibilities for staying in different places around the world like Europe, South America and Australia.  You can rent places as well but with a timeshare company we know that if anything goes wrong, they will make it right immediately.  We know some friends who have had bad experiences with rentals.  But, having said that, there are horror stories about timeshare as well.  The bottom line is to find out what works for you and enjoy this wonderful time in your life.  There’s too much to see and do to sit home.  Retirement is about keeping active.

Keeping active with hobbies and interests should always be a priority.  Writing is my hobby, and this website keeps the word “boredom” out of my vocabulary.  I thoroughly enjoy writing about things we have experienced in our travels, and I like to meet people who have stories to share.  That’s been the real reward of being able to travel.  I knew I was not content to just see pictures or documentaries about places I had heard about.  I had to see it for myself and most of the time it’s even better than I thought it would be.  I still remember seeing Santorini for the first time.  I had never seen anyplace that looked like that.  It was very different and very beautiful.  Traveling to different places has given me that feeling again and again.  Retirement is about keeping active, and, for us, travel is the ideal way to accomplish that.  What about you?  How are you going to keep active in retirement?  Why not start today?  Get busy and Enjoy Retired Life!

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