Still Clickin

Surrounded by the Familiar

“Should I stay or should I go?” That’s not only the line from a song, it is a question many seniors ask of themselves. The majority of seniors stay put and live through their senior years at the old homestead. They have their friends near. They know their merchants. They are familiar with every curve in the local roads. They are surrounded by the comfort of their own history.

That does not mean, however, that it is wise for any of us to attempt to steer through this new phase of life using cruise control. They need to look at their surroundings with “new eyes” and assess whatever adjustments may be possible to enhance this next phase of their life. For example -

• Removing clutter
• Decide to spend some time upon a few “New Things to Try”
• Rearranging space for new usage
• Retrofitting the home for safety and ease
• Researching opportunities to reduce expenditures
• Discovering local senior activities and opportunities

Rather than ruminate, it is always better to do something. For example -

1. As suggested in Downsizing, identify a place for disposable items and start moving things to it. This “way station” approach allows you time to reassess and reverse your decision if necessary.
2. Rearrange the children’s bedrooms for space to accommodate your new activities.
3. Consider creating a master bedroom on the main floor if you do not already have that arrangement.
4. Secure scatter rugs, install some lever door knobs, add grab bars to the shower, and perform all the other modifications mentioned in Accident Prevention before you have the immediate need for them.
5. Investigate local property tax relief or caps that may be available in your area.
6. Audit your home for safety and make the necessary changes before they are necessary.

The important thing is to recognize that this is a new time in your life, and it is best to prepare carefully for it. Before health becomes more of an issue, it is smart to retrofit your nest for independent living. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy the changes.

When dealing with the first layer of the retirement lifecycle, the big issues, i.e. finances, health, real estate, etc., all seem to take center stage. Change forces us to re-evaluate prior assumptions and make suitable adjustments. But once those adaptations have been made, the more subtle aspects of retirement seep into our daily rhythms, i.e. limitations, loneliness, and purpose.

Living life with a clear sense of purpose is always a challenge at any age. Defining careers, embracing families, and giving back can stretch anyone to the point that they can lose the sense of purpose. Learning Selfless Love, that ultimate purpose of life, can take a back seat to the urgent, the critical, and the just-a-sec of daily survival.

But in retirement, purpose can become an even more elusive goal. If much of your everyday world was focused upon the daily challenges of family and work, then living with fewer demands from both of these sectors can leave you with an unwelcome sense of emptiness.

Retirement gifts you with that rare gift of Time. The basic question returns, “What are you going to do with your time?” To any intelligent person, it quickly becomes obvious that drifting is not an acceptable answer. But the right answer for one particular person, a.k.a. you, can be elusive. The blunt reality is that you are demanding a better answer for yourself than you have accepted in the past. You can have grown to become very comfortable with the big picture of your life, but stymied by some of the everyday details. It takes some work to figure it all out.

The details are not trivial.

• Family - Your role as a grandparent is simply not as demanding as that of a parent. Once the grandchildren are in school, their schedules don’t permit as much “together time” with grandparents.
• Work - Because of the “age hurdle”, the choices for an engagement in some productive work activity seem to be segmented into (1) unimaginative, low-scale paid work, or (2) potentially more creative, challenging, and satisfying, but unpaid, volunteer work.
• Travel - Can be a very meaningful activity if it is a learning experience as well as a shared moment that can be a gift to that special someone. The erosion of the financial markets, however, may now constrain your range of choices.
• Social Activities - For example, golf, tennis, or bridge, can be pleasant activities for sharing time with family and friends. In and of themselves, however, these pursuits can lack staying power and purpose for many people.

What to do?

1. Identify the top five things you love to do.
2. Identify the top five things in which you excel.
3. If the “top five” approach doesn’t reveal a direction for you, talk with friends and relatives who know you and may have heard of something you might find interesting.
4. If you still are debating with yourself, look for something in which you can get engaged quickly. Try it, and see what you learn. If it doesn’t work, try a different option. It may take a few tries, but it is better than procrastinating.
5. Good luck with your efforts!

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

Instinctively, we all measure time. We measure it by the sun. We measure it by the moon. We measure it by the seasons. We measure it by the holidays.

As we get older, we also seem to measure it by more personal memories, e.g. when Charlotte was in middle school or when George worked at ABC Company.

Lately, I had a laugh when I noticed myself using a new time measurement, Costco Time. Warehouse stores sell LARGE packages. Once those packages reach home, we downsize the packaging to a smaller container and slowly use the contents. But after awhile, even those LARGE packages dwindle. It becomes time for a return trip to stock up on the inventory.

I have never really focused too carefully upon the intervals of paper towels (c. six weeks) or tooth paste (c. six months), but coffee filters caught my attention. The smallest container of coffee filters that I have ever found at Costco contains 700 individual filters. For our homestead, that means that two years have passed since we last purchased that item. That is quite an interval of time, and I started to review all of the things that have happened since the Costco Time of our last coffee filter purchase.

A new granddaughter, the loss of some dear friends, a new car, a new house, a new website, a new blog, a few tests, a few operations, a few trips, many wonderful times with family and friends, and hopefully, a bit of ruminating wisdom gained while sipping a couple thousand cups of warm, comforting coffee. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I won’t get more personal, but the coffee filter interval of Costco Time made me sit up and take notice.

I’m now questioning what I will achieve during this next package of filters. I do know that I will think about it every time I make a new pot of coffee. I like the fact that the coffee filter interval of Costco Time is sufficiently long to negate excuses. It will challenge me to set new goals and benchmarks. Who knows what those goals will bring, but each cup will remind me of my commitment.

Costco Time. Who would have thought???

NB. Click below to make a comment. If you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.