No Off Day

So retirees (especially premature ones) are often asked "SO how do you spend your time?" and equally often they have to pause and truly wonder how each day passes them by.

If you are a retiree and being harassed again with this question, tell them to get the answer from the  Sunday Times. You see, in addition to the usual World, Home, Sports the Sunday Papers has the following sections :

Invest, Think, Live, Connect, Go, Reflect, Read, Relax, Taste


Some titles need no further explanation like Invest, Read, Relax, Taste which refer to discussion and news on investing money, best sellers, movies & entertainment and of course where to get good food. 'Go' is about travel. 'Live' and 'Connect' feature activities and way of life in families and communities and about social media. 'Reflect' and 'Think' carry editorial, opinion and reflections on social and political issues.

Now aren't these a summary of what retirees do, a bit of everything that is. So some days by the time you lay down your papers you cringe in horror that its almost the morning gone. Another day you decide that you have been a complete fool not to make your money work harder and spend the whole day reading commentaries and stock analysis in the mail. Yet some days you feel you should give more of your time to volunteer work. Then again planning a holiday, reading tripadvisor reviews  and surfing the net to make the most of your trip, though fun is most time consuming.
And since you have the time you read the Opinion pages more often and think you should give some issues more thought. Needless to say you are also more obsessed with your health and spend more on body massages, foot reflex and even taking in tips from TCMs in the Mind and Body pages. Also the urge to reconnect with long lost cousins and old school mates sometimes find you people-googling. All of these of course are on top of time which is expected of you to serve your family, running errands inclusive and accompanying your work-stressed spouse on a long drive to Johor to Eat. As such it is not exaggeration when retirees tell you they are more busy than when they were working. In fact we really need to do some prioritizing!

A cautious note however is to be wary of the occasional existential angst. People of all ages experience this "Is that all there is to life?" kind of feeling but retirees in the midst of a professional/career loss may have a heightened sensitivity to this. This may be reinforced when there is a sense of not being valued. When such mood takes over nothing in the above long list of activities may seem worth doing. At times like this, spiritual reflections will help.

"The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off."
-- Abe Lemons