Retirement and Change

by Irwin L
(Lakeland FL)

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” – Rita Mae Brown

One of the things we learn once we retire is that the way our days used to go, meaning the usual 9-5 routine, is no longer an option. It is up to us to fill the void that once was the 9-5 routine that we used to call our work day. But, one thing is for certain our daily routine will no longer be the same. In all probability there will be some aspect of this new life that will bother us.

One thing I have learned over my past 16 years of being retired is - if there is something bothering me, especially on a daily basis, I have but one choice and that is to change it. I know from experience that the thing that is bothering me, whatever it is, will not improve in the slightest if I keep doing the same things day in and day out.

So how do we go about improving the situation? And how do we know things will change? The answer to that is to face up to the fact that the only way an improvement can be seen and will continue to be seen is if the change or improvement, is one that is made on a permanent basis.

We cannot change something today from the way we used to do it while we were working and then revert back to the old ways tomorrow. The same problem will continually pop up.

Retirement living is a different style of living than when we worked 9-5. As such, the hours spent going to and from work, in addition to the hours spent at work now have to be filled differently. That means some aspect of how we lived our lives while working may no longer be applicable.

It is almost a given that now that we are retired, some aspect of our lives has to change. And so that we do not face similar confrontations each and every day for the balance of our retired lives, the change has to be permanent. If we are to expect lasting life improvement now that we are doing things differently (retired life as opposed to working life), changes made now should be on a permanent basis, leastways until other life changes become known.

Think back if you will to when you were working and something went wrong. Chances are depending on what type problem you incurred, it was brought to your attention that something had to change so that the problem or similar problems would not occur in the future. More than likely a specific change was introduced to the problem at hand and in so implementing such change, things worked better. Furthermore, by consistently implementing this change - improvement was seen throughout the whole process. Eventually it was realized that by making such an improvement - life in general, leastways with regard this aspect of the job, all of a sudden became more acceptable.

When you stop and think about many of the situations we have been through in our lives before retirement, every single positive thing that has happened can probably be attributable to some small change we made in the process.

So, think of retirement as yet another phase of our life that may need some small (or perhaps big) change so that we can move forward in a happy and positive manner.

Once we make that decision/change or lifetime improvement, if you will, chances are we will look at our upcoming retirement years as exciting and ones we just can’t wait to get started.

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