The Retirement Challenge

There are people who retire and think, “OK now I can sit back in the easy chair and relax. I worked hard all my life and now I can coast.” I have to admit that it is nice to be able to relax and do things I enjoy but the idea of doing nothing with my life after retirement is just not the way to go. I have witnessed too many people who retired and sat and then began to die. To suddenly go from very busy to not busy at all is hard on the heart and all your other body systems.

The challenge in retirement is what do I do with me now. When it is possible to live to over a hundred years we have a long time spend in retirement. Having planed financially for the day of retirement so that I could live comfortably with out working for a living, I need to refocus my life. Some ten years before retirement I received a book from my pension fund that asked an important question. “What do you do after retirement?” It was an encouragement to start the process of refocusing my life long before I made that great change.

Spending a few weeks just relaxing and shifting gears was about all the time I needed. Being a Pastor of a church is to be on call twenty-four/seven and being a member of every committee and group in the church. That is a lot of meetings. Then suddenly no committees and no need to be out of bed and ready for work at an early hour. Sunday was real change to be able to sit in the pew with my wife and worship instead of directing worship. Nice!

The challenge was now what? I could focus my involvement in thing I enjoy. I volunteered to do many things in the community and the church and that for me was the key. I am still busy but on my terms. In church I may do a lot of ministry but without committees.  In the community I became a mayor and chaplain for the local fire department. As I love to write my daughters got me involved in blogging and I love it. Life is good in retirement when you meet the challenge to be active and alive.