If there is one bit of retirement advice that seems to hold true across the universe, it is those two small words – (you have to) keep busy. This mantra might almost be first on any list of things to do / ways to behave to have a successful retirement. I might speculate a while what ‘successful’ means in a retirement context. And true as soon as I make a definitive statement such as this I feel the need to qualify it somewhat. But overall it’s probably fairly true.
There undoubtedly are people in the world who see retirement as a licence to do nothing. I quite admire them in a way. They seem to have a peace of mind that requires no more than getting up each morning and musing (nice word) on what they should do. No plans, no targets, no goals, no tasks. So nothing unless somebody prevails upon them to get off their bottom and do something.
Just to demonstrate the ubiquitousness of the above, here’s an example from Saturday. We went round to our new neighbours last weekend for a pre-Christmas drink. Her being new to the neighbourhood she obviously hadn’t realised it wasn’t that kind of street. Or more accurately I am not that kind of street. But in the spirit of Christmas, whatever that may be, we went. And sure enough there I was trying to think of something, anything, to say to this person I’d just been introduced to.
When she found we were both retired, again, sure enough, out came the mantra. You have to keep busy. I, of all people, was not about to disagree with her. There is a downside, if you could call it that, to this keeping busy but I was not about to mention it.
This last week has been extremely busy for me. You might even say too busy but this is not the catch. I’ll tell you what I did last week and then I’ll share with you the downside.
Last week involved – two public performances; getting the garage roof nearly finished; tidying up / clearing out the same garage; booked our Irish holiday; made an appointment for a blood test; filled in forms and re-joined Wine GB; worked out chords for fiddle group; cleaned van, sorted out chair photos for blog.
That kind of thing, all off my to-do list and a couple of tasks there that were truly ‘monkeys off my back’, i.e. they’ve been around a long time – booking Irish holiday and cleaning our van were the two monkeys. By the time the Irish holiday comes around there will be many more monkeys but that’s it for now.
But, and here’s the catch, it has all felt a bit like that other cliché – running to stand still. For every time I knocked a task off the list another one jumped on. We needed to drive up to the vineyard (another task), not to do anything in the vineyard, but to see if I had left my proper prescription glasses there. These were the glasses I bought to replace the ones I lost, then found again and finally (it seems), lost again.
So we took the van full of stuff from the garage. We don’t actually throw anything out, just move it around. I did find the glasses and we did empty the van but then the van’s power steering packed up. Have you ever driven a tank but then they probably have power steering. Suffice it to say it was jolly hard work. Had I had muscles I would certainly have pulled them.
I am also emptying (relatively speaking) out the garage so the roof may be more easily repaired. More in the ‘muscles I haven’t got since I lost weight‘ department. But that’s again not the problem.
In the deficit column of life, last week the DVD player also packed up. We need this because one of our Christmas traditions is that we watch a ‘horror / ghost’ film on Christmas Eve with the children well daughter and husband. Like the MR James story telling tradition – a ghost story on Christmas Eve. Not a big problem, we have other DVD players, one of which was at the barn. I thought I’ll just kill the two birds and pick that one up as we deliver the stuff from the garage. So far so good but then when I test it out before bringing it back, there’s a snag. The DVD player seemed to work OK but the TV didn’t, so I couldn’t test it. Move back one square.
In a similar ‘why is this happening to me’ vein, one of the Calor gas heaters simply stopped working even though it was a relatively new canister. At the barn in winter you need every heat source you can lay a match to. Quite annoying and another little problem to be solved. Another task to be put back on my ‘to-do’ list.
There’s no doubt that for me as a retired person there is a definite pleasure in completing tasks, crossing them off the list. I have even been known to write completed tasks on a list in order to have the pleasure of immediately crossing them off. There is less pleasure in working your way through a list that is perpetually renewing. The joy is in completion, that’s what makes a person’s retirement feel meaningful, not the never-ending cycle of things to do.
So that’s where I slightly disagree with my neighbour’s friend. It’s not just the keeping busy that makes us feel like a proper person in our retirement. That will feel too much like making work for work’s sake. That dreaded phrase filling time. So yes, we need as retired people to keep busy and I’m trying very hard to avoid saying but only if it’s meaningful busy. This smacks too much of doing good work or working for a charity or some such. And nothing wrong with that but it’s possible to keep busy having fun as well as saving the world.
All this and not a word about Christmas but you can see it’s looming because, after reading this blog I can tell the pressure is building. It’s the biggest ramble, even by my standards, and I tend towards the rambling. I will no doubt tell you more about my Christmas experience at some later date. Merry Christmas though in the meantime.