Image by RaeAllen via Flickr

What are you waiting for?

I just celebrated my birthday; Even though I try to forget how many of them I have had, I can’t really deny that I am getting old. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I could pretend it isn’t so. As long as I didn’t look to closely at the image in the mirror when I shaved, I felt young – or at least not old. Lately, it’s not so easy. Despite the efforts of a personal trainer who has get me into the best muscle tone since basic training, there is no fooling mother nature. I need more sleep than I used to and my knees hurt all the time.

I’m not saying this to whine and complain. Whining helps me cope a bit but it doesn’t make the pain any less. Complaining diverts me from what is important. There is a finite amount of time left. My life is wrapping up and there are a bunch of things that I still want to do while I can. I don’t have all that much time left.

It’s not just the aging process.

There is also the possibility that I will suffer some physical injury or disability that prevents me from being active. I can’t control those events.  I likely have twenty or so years left but I can’t guarantee that those twenty years will be active and healthy. Each day that I can get up, take a walk and live a normal life is a blessing. I don’t know how many I have left but I want to live every one fully.

So this is what motivates me these days. I don’t have any time to waste. There are things I want to do, places I want to go and I need to generate some income to grease those skids. This gets me going each morning. It makes me pay attention to my work schedule and it and it motivates me to include fun breaks as well.

It would be easy to relax and go with the flow. 

It would be easy to accept my age and slack off. I could take it easy and coast to the finish line but imagine how I will feel twenty years from now on my death bed. What will I have to think about? What experiences will my wife and I share. How will I feel about my life?  Maybe siting on a rocking chair and watching the sunset has it’s charms and I’ll probably get to that point sooner or later. Still I want to have many exciting experiences between now and then. I couldn’t figure out what the point of taking riding lessons was and then I discovered horse trekking in Iceland. We haven’t even begun to explore the possibilities.

What’s your retirement style? 

Maybe you think that retirement lifestyle is making do with what you have. Maybe you are happy just sitting on a porch and letting your life wind down. Maybe you have decided that it is too late to do the things that you never had the time or money to do before. I’m not saying that you are wrong. I just know that I haven’t lived my life with the enthusiasm and spirit I wanted up til now. I don’t plan to continue that mistake. Nobody can tell me how much time I have left and how long I will have the physical strength to remain an active participant in life. So I’m not waiting any longer. I’ve got a lot of living to do.