Overcomplicating Retirement Decisions

 

Had a week off for a family vacation.  It was nice to get together with family and chill out and enjoy each others company.  Did some fishing, some hiking and spent a day on the lake in a rented pontoon boat.  We spent the week in south central Kentucky in the Nolin Lake area.  We also took a tour of the Mammoth cave area.  All in all a great week.  Now back to the Texas heat and my regular retired day to day life.  On the last night of vacation we went out for ice cream and I posted the following on facebook:

Finishing vacation with ice cream. Back to work tomorrow, wait I am retired.

I began to realize that this was my first vacation as a fully retired adult.  Last years vacation I was contemplating retirement but I was not yet fully committed to it.  I was still actively seeking employment at the time.  So when I returned from last years vacation I restarted my job search.  This year however, I return to the life of a full time retiree.  My first thought upon returning was to wonder as a retiree what exactly I am getting away from by going on vacation.  Of course this started me on a thought process about decisions and specifically our incentives and motivations behind them.  When working and supporting a family a lot of day to day decisions are out of our control.  We basically work to earn money to provide for our family.  If we are smart we put aside money for savings and retirement.  Once retired those day to day decisions suddenly have fewer constraints.

I do not have enough money saved up to do what ever I want whenever I want to.  I cannot simply jet off the Europe whenever the mood hits me.  All in all I am probably better off than most people my age ( I turn 62 today, happy birthday to me).  I still need to be responsible with our savings.  So to live a fulfilling retired life I have to be realistic about finances.  However more importantly I need to be honest about the type of person I am and what motivates me.  I have written in the past about what I do as a retiree and living a full life (Still being fulfilled).  I continue to do most of the things I wrote about in this post from September of last year.  When I break it down the 2 things I seem to enjoy most are riding my bike and the written word (reading it and writing it).

So what is it about these 2 endeavors that fulfill me.  On the surface they are quite different.  I do read about bicycles and bicycle races.  What do these two activities say about me and do they have a bearing on how I should live life.  It dawned on me one morning while brushing my teeth.  I was going over what I was doing that day and I realized that this was a day that I needed to wear pants.  I found the key to a sound retirement, a balance of activities that require pants and do not require pants.  Activities that require pants are generally ones that are public.  This keeps you engaged in your community and with friends.  Activities that do not require pants are generally private and give you pause for quiet personal reflection.

To test my theory I did a google search for "fulfillment in retirement" and I went to the site 7 ways to find fulfillment in retirement.  I ran down the list of their 7 ways.  There seemed to be a mix of pants required and pants not required suggestions.  With online options a number of items that in the past required pants no longer require them.  The first suggestion is to learn something new.  This does not require pants if the class is an online one.  A couple of the suggestions deal with friendships.  I would definitely consider these pants required!  The last thing I would want is a friend that would be happy seeing me pant less (lol).

So in the end there is no reason to overcomplicate decisions in retirement.  Especially those day to day decisions regarding how you spend your time and what activities to participate in.  All one needs to have a fulfilling retirement is a good sense of when to wear pants and when not to.