Semi-Retirement

I like that term. It involves working at something you might enjoy but not working all the time. Working on your own schedule. Choosing the number of hours and the tasks you do. Most people to whom I have spoken on this will say that the day they retired was glorious and full of the promise of doing all the things they never had time to do when they were fully employed.

And then they started doing those things and realized that they did not want to do them after all. So they tried some other things. Each person wading through the choices and finding the ones that make them hum. I have a good friend who will retire in a couple of months and she is going to get in her car and drive off on the road trip that she has planned. How exciting to go with a general agenda but be open and flexible enough to change it as new experiences come in on the horizon.

That is what retirement should be. Having a plan but being open to new ideas and shedding the old ones that turn out not to be what you had thought they could be.

I am sure that exercising more tops any list of retirement priorities since as we age our bodies require more maintenance than they used to. But most people who actually have retired say that even though they are not working they still find it difficult to fit this in. Other things that make the list are spending time in the garden, learning to cook like a chef and travelling.

My parents said they were planning to travel and did but found that as time went on they just liked to be home in the garden and hanging with family.

So here is how I see it. Make plans. Create your wish list. Start trying each item on the list and if it fits wear it. If it doesn't leave it behind. Stay flexible and be willing to add and subtract from your list as you go.

This applies to employment too. Try out different jobs that might be fun. A barista, an usher at a major sports building, the main desk at a busy fitness centre, the zoo. Volunteer or get paid a little. The goal is to have fun and still have time to do all those things you didn't have time for when you were working. It keeps you engaged socially and let's you learn new things that engage and challenge your mind and build new webs of neurons in your brain. And that will keep you interested and interesting as you age!

Breaking the Paradigms that Define Us

I took some holidays without plans mostly because I had to take them or lose them. So I planned to work on the business and maybe get a feel for how it would feel without a 'real' job. My second son who still lives at home is away in Guatemala for the week so the whole image of what it is going to be like was very real.

Day 1 was delicious. I slept in and woke up and had my coffee and read anything and everything for about two hours. Then I did a few things for the business. Then I went to the gym and did a spin class which made me feel amazing. I went home and on the way, stopped leisurely in to pick up a few groceries at the Italian deli, to make this meal I had in my mind to make. I took my dog for a walk and just appreciated the cold and snow rather than cursing it. While I put the dinner together I had a glass of the most amazing red wine, a Shiraz, called A Bird in Hand. Nothing rushed. Just simply in the moment each moment of the day.

And I realized that staying in the moment instead of staying focused on the never ending list in your head is about doing less and running less. Trying to get less into your day rather than more. Is it always realistic that we could make that happen. Not sure.

So then Day 2 arrived and started similar to Day 1 but throughout the day I was haunted by this aimless feeling of wasting time rather than treasuring each moment. I have heard others speak of it too. Wondered why it is that we feel that it is wasting time when we don't go out to do a job that has dubious relevance in the whole scheme of things and yet when we do the things that feel good and spend time with those who light us on fire, we feel an aimlessness and a low grade anxiety for not having accomplished much in our day.

I guess 35 years of going to a job that society deems as credible, sits in my mind as a relevant way to spend my time. Busy-ness is valued. Busy-ness means you are important. The secret paradigm under which I and a lot of other people were schooled. I liked this video below. Simple but it is a great illustration of how a paradigm is formed.

Is it possible to remove this programming from my brain and set up a new paradigm that actually values valuable time spent enjoying each moment rather than just filling each moment. Not sure but I intend to explore that option over the next two weeks. Since I am going back to the job, it will not truly represent the goal but it is as close as I can get right now. Emhasis on the 'right now'.

Moonlight on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa

In the name of trying new things, I have a confession to make. I have not been trying new things in my personal realm. For the business every step I make is a new thing...some of them work and some of them do not. In my work life, the one that pays the bills, as opposed to the one that sucks up my money like a black hole, I am currently on a huge learning curve that is surprisingly most enjoyable. I am at my best when I am on my learning curve. That is something I know to be true about me.

But it would seem that I can only manage so much learning curve at one time. So my realm of personal new experiences, although innately connected to my other growth experiences, is quite sadly lacking.

That is part of the reason why, last weekend, we jumped in the car and drove to Ottawa Ontario Canada to visit some friends and....here it comes....we skated on the canal. For those of you who do not know Ottawa, the Rideau Canal winds through the city for 5 miles as the world's longest ice skating rink, and when it freezes in the winter, they clear the snow and maintain the ice surface for skating. The midnight version of this experience is not to be missed. The whole distance is well lit, safe at night and we had the natural light of the moon adding atmosphere to an already magical experience. My two almost adult boys and their girlfriends with us totally.

We went at midnight on a record cold moonlit night and there were still dozens of skaters that we passed through the night. It was one of those experiences that has been on my list for some time and there I was skimming along the ice surface completely oblivious to the freezing temperature.

It does not get any better than that.

I Suddenly Get the Social Networking Thing for Business

I had an epiphany on the whole social networking possibilities for business. I did not see the whole picture before. It was not that I was not working at it. I read books and articles online to try to integrate it. I played with my Face book, my blogs and Twitter and kept trying new things but it did not completely make sense to me. I just was not getting how it could all work to promote your business. And then I just got it. For some reason the knowledge clicked and now I can see how it can all work. It has amazing possibilities and now I see why everyone is talking about it. Not that it could be, by any means, considered a static entity or one that you can ever truly know. But I get the why and how in it's present form and it makes sense.

I also see why companies who leverage it hire people to monitor it. It can be intensely laborious to remain current all through the various channels that make up social networks. Blogging,comment monitoring, posting comments on other blogs, Face book presence and interactivity and Twitter presence alone can consume your time. Not that it isn't fun! It is lots of fun. But it can eat up the hours that you were planning to do other things. But really...what could be more important than free and almost free advertising for you business.

So some thoughts for anyone out there muddling through the possibilities but not seeing them. I recommend that you just keep on keeping on. Try things and if they work keep them and if they don't work, do something else. Keep doing things and more things. When I felt like I got it, it was like a cloud cover clearing and I could see forever. Nothing amazing happened to cause it. No single catalytic event. Just sudden clarity.

Painting the Canvas that is Your Life

I wanted to share a quote that was wonderfully revealing to me.

Alex Crockett from Broken Postcard sums it up like this: "I used to paint a lot. When I painted I would often have to stand at a distance from the painting in order to not add too much detail to one single area at the exclusion of the whole. It seems that faced with immediacy of life we all too readily get involved in details at the exclusion of what may be a better perspective."

Now, although I often do not know of what Alex speaks on any given day, this particular quote changed how I think. How interesting it is to realize how we shrink our world. We get involved in the day to day of our lives and "add the detail" to our days. That potentially becomes the whole picture and fearfully we can frame it as we see it and it becomes our world view. And we operate there for the rest of our days. In actuality it is a very small microcosm of the entire reality in which we exist. "The whole painting."

If we can for a moment, back up and see how our microcosm fits into the world view, we would be startled by how insignificant the petty details can become. When you view the whole painting, the small area where you were working looks...well...small. What seemed so large becomes so small when you change it's context. It can shrink your problems to a manageable almost laughable size. They become mundane. Humbling. On any given day, I cannot rise above and on other days I can see beyond my world to a strange and exciting distance. Splash color on the whole painting not add endless detail to a small area. Way more fun.

I think the desire to try new things is an effort to expand the piece of the painting that you work on. It makes you want to add colour to a bigger part of the picture. What you see when you back up can make you want to back up even more. Seeing your world as a microcosm of a world that is a microcosm of an even bigger world. How fascinating.

Picture is from http://www.transformyourimages.co.uk/art-gallery-16/paint-burst-yellow-canvas-8109.htm

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS

This poem is from a website called Vibrant Nation. For women 50+. Check it out.

by Portia Nelson

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

I Have an Inner Princess!

I grew up in a time when retail was functional but not meant to entertain. I should say my inner princess was growing up then. Everything you needed was there but there was no glitter and lights. Or not that I remember. It just was what it was. We did not know enough to realize that we might be missing something. So my inner princess sat quietly inside.

There were no pink frilly things, no sparkly things in my memory. I did not know they were even out there if they were. So what happens when this inner princess, who has been repressed through years of working in the competitive world of business, while I made my way to Director with a major blue chip company, suddenly starts to communicate with the competent shell in which she has been hidden for so many years.

I realize that my inner princess is there when I pass by any store with sparkly or pink things and I am unable to comprehend my strange fascination with all things in this realm. Until recently I think the only pink thing I owned was a pink Iron Man T-shirt buried deep in my cupboard. (My dog wears it on Breast Cancer runs now!) The rest were varying shades of blue or black with an odd splash of red.

So how to explain the sudden infiltration of all things pink when I am about to turn 53. Strange sparkly sweaters that I have yet to wear and can no longer remember why I had purchased them. A lifetime of pent up desire or the emergence of my inner princess?

For Christmas we decided that we would not purchase gifts but would give things away to those that had no gifts. After Christmas I listened to some friends who were over talking about some pretty cool gadget gifts one of which was an IPAD and my inner princess cried. (Not really but she stamped her feet a lot!)

And then the day I had to clean the caulking in the shower might have been the day she died. I think she was buried in the caulking I removed. Certainly not a job that a princess would do. Note to myself: Hire someone to do that one next time!

Could this strange awareness of the possible existence of an inner princess actually be aligned with going back to a time when you knew clearly what your hopes and goals looked like. A time when you planned to do something and then you did it and then you made another plan. And you did that. And then life started rolling along seemingly by itself. And so you handled whatever life threw your way. You handled other people's priorities without a second thought too. Your inner princess is the child in you tapping you on the shoulder and saying "Remember?".

My inner princess has surfaced to remind me of a time when my life was my own and my goals and plans were endless and possible. This is the second act and could it be that my dreams are just as endless and possible.