It’s been just about a year since I started my shallow life of leisure so I figure, since I have nothing else to write about, I would update you on how things are going. Well so far, so meh! Which doesn’t mean it’s been bad. There have been great walks with the “walking ladies”; wonderful lunches and dinners with some old and new friends; and coffee, lots of coffee. But let me get this off my chest. For a gal whose motto to live by was “the least amount of work for the most amount of money”, you might find what I am about to say a tad surprising. The truth is, I’m not all that crazy (yet) about being retired. Not only that, I have another confession to make. I took a job. It’s not a very big job, but it is a job nonetheless. And I like it. So clearly, if there ever had been a plan for my retirement, and of course there wasn’t, this would not have been it. As you can imagine, at this point I figure I might benefit from some sage retirement advice. And can you think of anyone better than Oprah to call on when you need a little sage advice? Neither can I.
But before I get to the piece of wisdom she shared with me, let me talk a bit about procrastination. Mostly because I’m pretty good at it. I mean think about it. I’m actually writing this yearly update about a month too late since I did officially retire at the end of June 2017 and here we are staring down the end of July 2018. Not only that, I spent an inordinate amount of time “researching” procrastination, which was kind of silly since I already know so much about it. Although it did prove to be rather enlightening and not as much of a waste of time as I thought it would be. You see, I discovered that there are real benefits to procrastination including the possibility that if you put something off long enough you might not have to do it at all. And who hasn’t done that? It also gives you a chance to mull things over for a really long time so you end up with a better outcome. Maybe. Perhaps though, the most important thing I learned was that the best way to make sure you do what you say you are going to do is to “commit publicly to your task”. Nothing like a little peer pressure to motivate. So that’s exactly what I am going to do now. Commit. But before I do, let’s get back to Oprah.
I’ve always liked Oprah even though I was never in the audience when she gave away cars, or houses or anything else for that matter, mostly because I was never actually in her audience. But even though she no longer enters our living rooms each and every day, if you look closely and pay enough attention you will find her, like I did, on the magazine rack of your local grocery store. There she is, every month, gracing the cover, looking gorgeous I might add, and continuing to share with us her recipe for living our best life. So it’s not surprising that, given my current situation, this month’s O Magazine’s headline “What are you longing to do?” caught my eye. Of course Oprah is not one to leave us hanging so if I was prepared to buy the issue, which I was not, apparently I would get some help answering that question by finding out “how to make my life synch up with my soul”. That’s about as far as I got given that I always thought those two culprits were one in the same and was unlikely to get caught up in that spiritual bubble. Nonetheless, since I still have an imagination it got me thinking. Thinking that since, at my age, it’s quite legitimate for me not to work any longer, I really should figure out what else might keep me occupied for the remainder of my days. Here’s what I’ve come up with.
I want to make a table and I want to take some pictures. So come the Fall I will be enrolling in a woodworking course and a photography course. At different times of course. Not sure how this will go. Last time I was in the vicinity of a power saw I just about lost a thumb so hopefully I’ll do a little better this time. And while I most likely won’t stand out in the rain taking pics (my hair just hates when I do that) I’m hoping to be able to fill up a few inches of my blank wall space with a vista or two. And who knows, my new adventures might even give me something else to write about.
So that’s it. Simple, really. All I have to do is find a couple of courses, get myself registered, and attend the classes. And I’m sure I’ll get around to doing that sometime soon. But I figure there’s no real rush. Because now that I’ve told all of you what my plans are, I’m already well on my way.
Shallow Be My Name 