Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Three thoughts

 

I started this blog a couple of years ago.  I had just retired from the IT industry and realized that in retirement you had to make many more decisions about your day to day life.  When working 8 - 10 hours a day were consumed.  I obviously had the some freedom to chose were I worked.  It was always a good idea to seek employment that matched a skill set I had.  Still, with travel to and from work and an 8 hour day a lot of my waking hours were spoken for.  When to wake up was greatly influenced by my work hours and travel time.  Most of the jobs I had I did have the freedom to decide how the work was to be preformed.  For the 19 years I was an IT instructor the location of the classes and what classes were to be taught was scheduled by others.  However I did have the freedom to chose the general areas of IT I worked in.  I stayed predominantly in the infrastructure and networking areas.  I was not a coder or database expert.  I did decide to expose myself to these areas to make myself a more well rounded instructor.  Even though I had curriculums to follow how the information was presented was entirely up to me.

When retired you first decision is not what time to get up it is whether or not to get up (LOL).  After deciding that laying in bed all day is not a good idea the second decision is what to wear.  In the working world your clothing was usually influenced by some sort of dress code.  I have been subjected to dress codes ranging from jacket and tie to jeans and tee shirts.  Now I get to set my own dress code.  You can see this post on Not over complicating decisions on my approach to dress codes.  BTW Today is a pants on day.  It was up to me as to what when and where I did things.  Every day was entirely mine to navigate.  I started this blog mostly because that level of freedom fascinated me and I was curious as to how it would affect me and my life.

This post is not meant to be a report card on how I have been handling retirement.  It is more of a gentle musing about how the decisions I have made and how they have affected my attitudes, emotions and life.  I am happy to say that I do not sit on the porch and yell at kids to get off my lawn (LOL).  I am also confident that I have experience very little change in my attitudes and emotions.  If anything I have become more aware of these.  The most heartfelt of these is my general attitudes toward life.  I have never considered myself a Type "A"  personality.  However I have never been accused of being the easy going type either.  To some people I appear as an enigma.  In my assessment I have approached certain task and endeavors with Type "A" characteristics while maintaining a less than type "A" attitude.  If that is even a thing.

So here are three thoughts on decisions that I have experienced since retiring and writing this blog.

1. In spite of a change in life style I still make the majority of my decisions from a fundamental core of beliefs and characteristics.  I have always had this belief that it is important to be a responsible member of my family and community.  This begins with decisions about how to live our day to day lives.  Being retired and not have a job to go to I could lie in bed for all hours until I feel like getting up.  Admittedly I do sleep a little longer than I used to but I am usually up around 7:30 am dressed and bed made.  I make breakfast and usually decide on what to make for dinner.  Part of all this is to support my wife who continues to work.  So basically she is financially supporting us at this point in time so my main task is to support her.  That means cooking dinner and keeping the house in order, although I still fail at the decorating end of that task.  Working at the church is just one way of being a responsible member of my community.  It is not like I am going to run for city council or become some type of radical activist.  I simply mean that make decisions that are based on a consistent and responsible life style.
2. Part of being responsible is to understand your limitations.  Usually the two main limitations in retirement are health and money.  As for health I have tried to remain active.  I have to admit that at times I have gone a little overboard on this one.  A few bike crashes has tempered my riding intensity.  A recent eye injury and a busy schedule have slowed down my bike riding.  As for money I have yet to take social security ( I am waiting to max that out).  We have also not dipped into our 401k.  Basically trying to be as frugal as I can be.  I have even started to clip coupons.  Instead of purchasing kindle books all the time I have been using an online library card.  It would be nice if we all knew exactly how long we had to live and then we could budget accordingly.  For now making responsible financial decisions will have to do.
3. I have a discovered a new world of decision theory.  This has kept my academic juices  flowing.  I have discovered the field of behavioral economics.  I have posted about Richard Thaler's book previously.  Most of us in the past have assumed that we humans make sound rational decisions.  This field disputes this assumption.  I find this quite interesting and I am constantly on the lookout for situations that support these ideas.

Just for clarification a "pants off day" means sweats or gym shorts.  Do not get the idea I stroll around in my underwear all day.