Learning to Slow Down in Retirement
“If you’re always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you’re in? Slow down and enjoy the moment you’re in and live your life to the fullest.” - Nanette Mathews
Back in my working days at the bank I was a goal oriented high achiever a typical “Type A” personality. I won many sales contests because I worked hard and was willingly put in a lot of extra hours to outperform the competition.
One day, I remember one of my team members saying to me that we never took the time to celebrate the victories anymore. He was right. We were always on to the next deal never slowing down and taking time to appreciate what we had accomplished.
This was just the way I was back then.
Personal sacrifices had to be made if you wanted to win consistently and I was just wired to win.
Unfortunately my addiction to busyness carried over to retirement.
Even though I’ve been technically retired for eight years because of my ambitious personality I’ve been crazy busy writing books, posting articles on social media and doing seminars.
It’s eight years I won’t get back – prime retirement time.
And although I love what I do and I’m accomplishing a great deal I don’t want my life to pass me by without really enjoying it.
Then there is the fact that excessive stress causes premature aging and the stress I have subjected myself to is clearly harmful not helpful.
So why continue to suffer from irritability, insomnia, and high blood pressure when I don’t have to?
While my work provides me with a strong sense of purpose and meaning it takes away from other things in my life which are just as important like spending time with family and friends, working out and pursuing other interests that I’m passionate about like fly fishing.
I don’t need to be busy doing work every day to be happy.
This is supposed to be the fun part of my life but many times it doesn’t feel like that. I always seem to feel the need to do more work and constantly feeling like that makes me anxious and stresses me out.
Being busy working all the time is not the secret for happiness. In fact it can often take away from it.
