***
I was probably a little more forgiving to myself during that first year of retirement, but extra discretionary time often leads to more introspection, or an equivalent of what this Huffington Post piece refers to as ‘sensemaking’.
This article highlights research by the University of Cincinnati’s Heather Vough and colleagues who identified a list of the six most common career-ending narratives, including the three most challenging to a retiree’s self-worth:
I experienced a mix of these three and so my first year, while at times leisurely, was more marked by a juggling act of highs and lows and doubts and revelations.
My challenge, and I would guess that of plenty of other retirees, was to write a new script.
More on that in a later post.
Take the time to read the HuffPost piece. I’m betting there will be a realization or two out there if you identify your retirement narrative according to the article’s list.
Go ahead , fellow retirees, say it.
“This guy is pathetic!”
But millions of wise people whose lives revolve around the total care and comfort of their dogs can’t all be wrong.
Now that you’ve made a decision to create [and possibly to share some of your work], you might saunter further into some unexplored, or at least dormant, traits.
Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, says: [Note: For every mention of writing, plug in your own creative endeavor.]
“The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail — not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime. “Ever tried, ever failed,” Samuel Beckett once wrote. “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” It requires what the great editor Ted Solotoroff once called endurability.”
For a more complete discussion, click on over to Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings.
