Is that living?

There are lots of people who think they deserve a well-earned total rest as they approach sixty years of age. It is true that they have done a lot of work in their careers. They have possibly earned a lot of money. They had faced a lot of problems and overcome them. They have done their very best to raise their families, and with success too. The children are grown and are on their own. There is sufficient money to survive on for the rest of their days. So, they really deserve to take things easy and rest for the rest of their lives. But how do we do that? That is the most important question we have to face. To answer that we have to ask ourselves what is living?

What are our lives for, if not for living? “Ah, but how would you define living? Well, I enjoy watching television. That’s life, man! To sit lazily on my couch to watch what that television can deliver each day is a luxury I can now effort,” someone might promptly respond.

Well, if that someone would like to think that way, who am I to say that that is not right? For him that’s life. After all, it’s happiness that matters most. Furthermore, it is that person’s life to do as he pleases. However, watching television day in, day out until the eyes get tired cannot be very happy in the long run, can it? Will all the programmes be interesting? By the way, did I tell you I have seen people doze while the television watches them? And those people doze not out of sleepiness but boredom. Would that be the life we want?

To make life interesting, enjoyable to live with, we have to find meaning in life. Do you find pleasure in the things you do in your retirement? Do you go to bed looking forward to the next day? If it is a resounding ‘Yes’, then you must be doing great. If that is so, then you must be awake the next day, ready to continue with the fun you are having in life.

By the way, this is my idea of retirement from my work, to enjoy the things I have always wanted to do, to rest when I wish to and to do things not for money but for my own satisfaction. For example, I have always loved to write and this blog is just the perfect vehicle to achieve my dream, to write and share my thoughts as well as to find inspiration as I go along. Do you know that when I was in school, one teacher made the ‘mistake’ of encouraging this guy to write any number of compositions to be passed up for him to read and correct. I wrote a composition each day until after a month he told me he could not cope and told me to slow down. I understood and so relented.

Well, of course, life is not exactly what I expect to have as there are still the obligations that I have to attend to. There are hobbies which I have started earlier, friends, my children, and my work and interest as a masseur. I still have no time for batik painting and cooking, for example. I hope to do some back-packing too but then, I only have twenty-four hours.

To be the player, not the song; to be the actor and not the audience; to take an active part in as much of what we enjoy as is possible, that ought to be the way most of the time. There are the times we do need to sit and listen, watch and appreciate, to be the motivation, to encourage and to inspire. In such a manner, we balance our lives with the different meaningful roles we can play, and in so doing learn and experience more and newer things.

Having the luxury of all the time available to go into all these wondrous spheres of life is the greatest gift of retirement, but what is a gift but merely a useless object or idea if it is not put into meaningful use in our lives. So, live the gift for there is a limit to its presence. We know not when we will have to forfeit it and depart from this earth but let us not think of that, let us not waste time over it but enjoy the gift of time to the full. Then, we can truly say that we have live our life well and delve as deep as is possible into our own potential; that which was given to us at birth.