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Decisions, decisions, decisions, your brain wants to go one way, while your heart wants to go the other way. Can you change your way of thinking in this new retirement world of never-ending free time and no alarm clock? You really cannot do anything about the past anyhow, so it is best to deal with the present.
Horse Races and Paint Stores
(Or: Choices and Tastes)
By Patrick M. Kennedy
As a senior you had to make so many choices at forks in the road through the years. Yes, to this, No, to that, and here you are on the path you have chosen. Sometimes right, and sometimes wrong, but none the less, here you are. You are married, or not, you work here or there, at this or that, you have kids, or not, and all because you had to make thousands of little and large decisions along the way in life. Decisions, decisions, decisions, your brain wants to go one way, while your heart wants to go the other way.
“I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody” … says Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) who is a dockworker and boxer in the 1954 movie, On the Waterfront. Are you saying that, or are you celebrating your choices. You really cannot do anything about the past anyhow, so it is best to deal with the present.
So many things got in the way or made you take a detour on your way to your final happiness, which may be retirement. “I'm retired - goodbye tension, hello pension!” said the famous Author Unknown. That sounds great. But getting here has been tough, and you are not alone in that. Bias, gender, age, race, politics, ambitions, emotions, traditions, limitations, reasoning, instinct, and so forth, have nothing to do with whether two plus two equals four, or not, or what you want to do now, or not.
Those are just phases of life, like rings in a tree trunk, and are very relevant only to their own posture and existence, but never have an effect of whether four is four, and not five. There are so many opinions in life … so many decisions to make … so much like a world of Horse Races and Paint Stores. So many options for people, and so many tastes to satisfy, and if you choose the wrong color to paint your room, you have to live with it for a long time … or go through the painful process of making another decision. Or if you pick the wrong horse, you must watch your money slowly disappear, trot by trot, as the nag you picked hobbles around the racing oval eating the tails of faster horses.
“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” said Albert Einstein. So, can you change your way of thinking in this new world of never-ending free time and no alarm clock? The answer is obvious in this case – you must, or linger in a world of disorientation with no fun. Fun in Retirement is the name of the game. It is a hard transition from doing all the time, to doing only once in a while.
What to do, you may ask. “The trick is growing up without growing old," said that famous catcher and thrower of a baseball and a dry wit, Casey Stengel. And then, wasn’t it Dr. Seuss who said to you as a kid? “Today you are you, that is true r than true .”
The wisdom and secret of being a little older, and a little more practiced in life, and trying to be a little happier, comes from all regions of the human experience. Sometimes the need to be busy is an itch that must be scratched. Another darn decision must be made. What to do to keep busy? Paint your house, or go to the horse races? There are practical answers, and there are fun answers. You can get a job to keep busy and supplement a sparse income, or you can take up a hobby to take up some time. Life in retirement is still filled with choices and tastes, you cannot get around it, but, as someone said, “When confronted with a bad situation sometimes the best decision is to take a nap.”
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Good stuff. Great wisdom. My Dad would've liked your article. His retirement was cut short by an early death but he defintely would enjoy your philosophy.
Mike