So, it’s finally happened. You have retired. No more Monday mornings!
No more having to leave the house – the place you love – at a ridiculous time in the morning to make the commute to work.
No more Sunday night sadness as you remember where you have to go in the morning.
No more churning stomach as you start to gather your stuff up ready for the working week.
You might have loved your job, or you might have hated it… for many, it was something they tolerated in order to earn money to live. Something they had to do to keep a roof over the heads and food in their stomachs.
With most people working 30-40 hours a week, the majority of their waking time during the week was spent at work or engaged in other work related stuff, like travelling to and from work, and getting ready for work.
For some people, the average working day was not 8 hours but more like 10 or 12 by the time the travel and preparation was counted. With that amount of time lost each and every week day, is there any wonder retirees feel lost when they stop going to work?
Winters were worse, waking up in the dark, travelling to work in the dark, then at the end of the day clocking off as darkness set in and having to drive home again in the dark.
Natural daylight often only seen through windows and doors or when you popped out to grab a coffee or sandwich.
It wasn’t unusual for some people to never see any natural daylight during the deep winter months, other than that which came in through the windows. Many workers worked in factories, shops or offices, chained to their machines, checkouts or desks and with the weather being bleak and cold, if they never ventured out on their lunch breaks they could go a day without seeing natural daylight.
But…
That’s all in the past, it is behind you now and you now have all the time in the world.
So what are you going to do?
Travel more?
Finally take up the hobby you have wanted to try for the last X amount of years?
Maybe start up a business?
Write a book?
Whatever it is that you want to do or have always wanted to do, it is vitally important that you do something.
Do something with your time which is fun, something which will make you grow as a person. Doing nothing will do you no favours, you will begin to go inside yourself and wilt away.
Retirement is another life time. With people living longer and enjoying good health way beyond the age of our grandparents, we can be looking at enjoying another 20 or 30 years on this beautiful planet.
That’s quite a lot of time.
Surely it makes sense to make the most of it, right?
It would be a crime to lock ourselves away in our comfy slippers, sat in a high chair watching Midsommer Murders on ITV3 while sucking on countless Bon Bons.
I for one think people should enjoy their retirements.
Now is the time to grow, to try more, to do more, to play more, and to become more.
And that is what we are going to do.
Who is with me?
Let’s make this a Kick Ass Retirement.