Always good to circle back

 

I thought I would use this weeks post to circle back and attempt to focus on why I started this blog and why I focus primarily on personal decisions.  Also unlike most posts I am pretty much doing this without an outline or previous notes.  This is just me expressing some random thoughts on previous posts and observations.  I guess the most important element of this, is answering the question: "What have I learned?".  I think retirement is an intellectual fork in the road.  One path leads to day time TV and reality shows and the other can lead to unbounded cerebral  stimulation.  These are obvious ridiculous extremes.  I cannot think of a friend or colleague who has wandered down either of these excessive paths.  I did make an intentional decision to begin writing and an on line blog seemed to be the easiest way to begin.  The tools available were widely available and free to use.

So all I had to do was to figure out what to write about.  I had blogged previously about Ironman training and racing.  You can access some of the posts (triandbrag) from my blogger profile.  I wrote about my training endeavors, races and knee surgery recovery.  I was no longer racing so there was no need to continue that blog.  So why write about decisions?  There were two basic events that lead me to this topic.  The first was direct and crystal clear; the covid pandemic.  My wife and I are blessed with 2 beautiful children who were grown, independent and growing their own families.  It was just my lovely wife and I in the house we raised our children in.  We decided to sell the larger house and downsize to a smaller, one story house.  I also wanted to live in an area where shops and restaurants were close by.  Meaning I could walk to them.  We were able to find a nice house in the McKinney Historic district.  We are just over half a mile to the town center that has excellent restaurants and shops.  I was very happy.  Then the pandemic hit and everything closed.  We had lived in the house for about 5 months and one of the primary benefits disappeared.  When would I be able to safely walk to the town square and grab a meal?  Unfortunately we were inundated with so much information, disinformation and missing information that it would be impossible to decide what was safe behavior.  My goal was not to get on Facebook and tell everyone they should or should not wear a mask or how great social distancing was.  All I wanted was to walk into town and get a burger and fries!  Not too much to ask!  So dealing with information and mis information was the first driving force for this blog.  In fact the name "safetogototown" stems from this very dilemma.

The second driving force was retirement.  Nothing fosters the opportunity to look back and say, "how did I get here?" like retirement.  I started to ask myself,  what decisions led me to this point in my life.  Was deciding to get a University degree important?  Was my masters degree really that helpful?  Did I save enough for retirement?  Did I make the right choices for my health.  Most importantly now that I am retired what am I going to do with the rest of my life?

So off I went into world of internet blogs.  I have found writing quite fulfilling.  Looking back at some of my posts I have written about a number of aspects of the our decision processes.  I am not quite sure that I could have navigated the ups and downs of retirement without this outlet.  Most importantly I have learned a number of things.  Not just in the academic sense but also in the emotional and spiritual sense as well.

Here is a rundown of a few of the things I have learned.

Reading is just as important as writing:  I have found that reading has given me two essential tools.  The first is the academic acquisition of knowledge.  I have found that the field of behavioral economics has greatly improved my understanding of the topics I write about.  Traditional economics is basis is that we all make rational decisions when it comes to money, spending and saving.  Authors such as Richard Thaler and Dan Ariely dispute these notions.  Their work has given my an entirely new view on decision making.  Reading a variety of books also gives a more enlightened perspective.  Cait Flanders book "The year of Less" had a some negative reviews on GoodReads.  I however, was totally captivated by it.  I saw an entirely new perspective when it came to making intentional decisions.

I am strong when it comes to Tactical behavior.  I have looked at decisions in 3 layers: Strategic, Tactical and operational.  Here is a Google AI generated explanation of the 3 layers:

Strategic planning sets the overall long-term vision and direction for an organization, tactical planning translates that vision into specific actions and initiatives for different departments, while operational planning focuses on the day-to-day tasks and activities needed to execute those tactical plans at the lowest level within the organization; essentially, strategic is "big picture," tactical is "mid-level execution," and operational is "hands-on implementation.". 

I feel that strategic planning requires an unbounded imagination that I seem to lack.  As I was entering adulthood in the early 80's I doubt I could have ever imagined the cell phone.  If I could I probably would have envisioned it as nothing more than a niche product.  Pictures, internet access and social media have rendered the phone component as a minor feature.  I do ok at the operational layer, basically making things work.  However to be really efficient at this layer one needs a strong memory.  I think of configuring cisco devices.  I constantly had to look up syntax of commands that I had used several times.  Many of my colleagues in this field had no problem remembering commands and syntax.  Staying with IT my comfort zone was the tactical area.  I was able to quickly assess a desired architecture and knowing the role and limitations of several devices I would efficiently design and build it.  The tactical layer allowed me to get my hands dirty while still exercising my intellectual muscles.

I work to a framework not specific plans.  I think this stems from my comfort with tactical behavior.  When I attended university I did not have any specific plans on what and how I was going to do things.  I met some people that had their first couple weeks planned out to the minute.  I didn't know enough about university to do something like that.  I had enough trouble finding classrooms and buildings.  My framework was quite simple.  I was going into physical sciences because that is what I was interested in.  I was going to get a 4 year degree in 4 years and I was going to try some different things.  Every decision was weighed against this framework.  I really did not want to spend any more time than was necessary getting my degree.  I did end up with my 4 year degree in 4 years.  I had a little fun, met some wonderful people and met my future wife.  All in all a pretty successful framework.

I think going forward the most important decision is to practice gratitude.  This is something I have recently come across.  Any internet search on gratitude is going to return an extensive list of the benefits of gratitude.  The benefits are physical, emotional and spiritual.  I think the benefits are deeper and more heartfelt.  I believe gratitude is an important discipline that permanently raises our self worth and then leads to behaviors that benefit our friends, family and communities.  We can be thankful and happy without it really affecting our behaviors.  Gratitude cannot be held hostage.  It seeps out in kindness as we interact with others.  I believe it raises our baseline level of contentment.  I posted recently about gratitude.  Give it a read if you have not already read it.

I am sure I have learned many other things on this path.  If only I could remember them.....