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By Bill February 2nd, 2012
The Wheel of Desire
Upon retiring, I immediately went to work in a new job. That job went into a slow period and I got another job. In my last post I gave a lot of reasons for doing so, all perfectly valid. There is, however, a problem.
I fill my life with lots of activities, work, caregiving, the daily household tasks, maintaining a healthy marriage, several hobbies, movies, raving about the silliness of politics, and so on. The problem is that there is still time in my life to just sit. That leads to what Ezra Bayda calls “The Anxious Quiver of Being”. He is talking about the fundamental issue of life: “What am I doing here?”.
We fill our lives with myriad things to avoid dealing with this question. Addictions are …
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By Bill January 31st, 2012
Retirement Fear
Marti Weston (check out her blog) asked this question after reading my last post about my new job. I like to think I lead something of an examined life, but I know I haven’t fully examined my motives for continuing to work after retiring at age 68. The money is part of the equation, as Carol and I agreed before I retired that it would be best if we live on our income for a few years before we have to tap our retirement savings. In addition, I have a tendency to buy boy toys, so having some money for them is a bit of a goal.
What happened when I got my first post-retirement job is that I discovered a talent I did not know I had. I simply love working …
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By Carol January 22nd, 2012
Years ago I could only use a yellow legal pad for my writing. If I didn’t have my yellow pad, I couldn’t write. Then a determined Bill coaxed me to try word processing. Now I love the ease of editing, the spellchecker and the way words flow from my fingers onto the page. I especially like Microsoft Word, a program that I always thought was too complicated for me until we started blogging.
Today, with my right hand encased in a stunning purple cast, I can’t use my cherished Microsoft Word. The best I can do is to hunt and peck enough to edit this.
And what is this?
I am “writing” this post via an iPad app called Dragon Dictation. Since I had joint replacement surgery on my hand almost two weeks ago, …
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By Bill January 19th, 2012
One of my first memories about retirement was when a rancher in my home town quit riding every day when he was 85 years old. A year later he was dead. My father talked about it as though the rancher’s retirement was a death warrant. It shaped my attitude about retirement, in that there was something vaguely morally wrong about stopping going to work every day.
I have been retired since March 2011 and have two jobs. What is interesting about my attitude about retirement is that I acquired it from my father who retired at age 65 and never worked another day. I really do not know how he made the transition to retirement as he never in his life talked about his feelings. I do know he made regular trips to …
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By Judi January 8th, 2012
I first heard this poem read by the author on NPR radio back in June of 2011. The words that the poet speaks are raw and true. Listening to it brings tears to my eyes. (Rated R for some strong language.)
The poet is Kane Smego who is a frequent participant in Poetry Slams and he is the Artistic Director of Sacrificial Poets, a Chapel Hill, NC group who’s mission is “To inspire, foster, and promote artistic expression, personal growth, and social justice for youth in our collective communities through the use of the spoken and written word.”
Below is the written transcript of the poem from the video.
Retired Royalty By: Kane Smego
There is a proverb from the Ashanti of Ghana that says: “The words from the mouth of an old …
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