Reflection # 6: What Now?
Navigating Life After Retirement
Reflection #6 What Now?
It’s been months now and still, I feel, a keen sense of disquiet. Now what? How will I spend the remainder of my life?
With this question, I resorted to my usual means of survival: study, research, and writing. I began to journal and read books and articles on aging and retirement. Lo and behold, what I discovered to my unexpected delight was that what I’d originally taken to be professional failures could be reinterpreted as opportunities to reroute life toward a new vision. I began to harvest my life, looking for the blessings within my experiences. I realized that each change had laid a foundation for the next life adventure. In some mysterious and beneficent way, life offered me the opportunity to travel the country and the world, befriend many fine companions, and make a difference in people’s lives.
From time to time, and between changes, I was and am confused about my destiny. In my immature and half-baked ways, I jumped to conclusions in my younger days that I am now reexamining in my maturity. When I was younger and vulnerable, I saw the world as either for or against me. This was reinforced when I felt hurt or betrayed. Now on a platform of broader understanding, I am reexamining and contemplating my foundational views of the world and recontextualizing what happened to me from a more objective, less impulse-driven philosophical position. In this way, I am releasing myself from my earlier conclusions about life. The facts are facts, but my conclusions may have been wrong.
Now I am grateful that I live in a loving family, and I’ve survived the many changes of life. I can’t say I am there yet, but I am working to forgive myself and the people who perhaps unwittingly hurt me in some way. To thank and bless them for the unexpected good that resulted from the decisions they made that seemed not to be in my best interest. This new alchemy is slowly converting disappointment and confusion into gratefulness, acceptance, and inner peace.
I’m discovering how much I have gained from apparent losses due to change. I’m beginning to appreciate the hidden benefits that have accrued from what I took as failures. I am learning to revisit the joys and sorrows of my life and say yes to them for the benefit of the more enlightened awareness I now have. Looking back, I have to say I made the best decision I could at each juncture for who I was at the moment.
Now it’s your turn
Take time to reflect and if in a group, share as you feel able.
When you think about your past, you remember:
a) happy experiences you remember and may like to relive.
b) hold a lot of sadness.
c) a mix of negatives and positives.
d) old regrets and hurts.