Tag Archives: Retirement

Overcoming the Guilt of Being Retired – 6 Ideas for Letting it Go

Retirement Guilt

Recently, I’ve been experiencing some “down time” on the voyage. My side hustle gigs have slowed down considerably, I didn’t get a contract that I desperately wanted, and I find myself with an abundance of TIME on my hands.

Most people would say, “Isn’t that what retirement is supposed to be about?” Having nothing but time to do what you want?

Now that I find myself in that situation, a new monster has reared its ugly head – GUILT! There is a nagging voice in my head that I should be doing something more “productive.” Somehow, sitting reading a book in the middle of the day could be considered lazy. How can I work on a quilt in the middle of the afternoon when I should be “working!”

I have been working hard to fight off those nagging “shoulds!” I should be doing the laundry. I should be cleaning something. I should be doing almost anything that would be considered worthwhile around the house, rather than what I WANT to do.

And just to pile on a little bit, there are always those pre-retired friends, who feel the need to express, “You’re sooooooo lucky to be retired! Some of us don’t get to sleep in late.”

So what’s a Voyager to do?

Setting Ourselves Free

Recognize that you are deserving of your good fortune. You’ve worked hard for many years and have made prudent financial decisions which allowed you to retire. There is no need to apologize for those decisions. Embrace your well-earned life style. It’s quite OK to get some rest after 30+ years of racing with the rats! When someone says, “You’re so lucky,” just smile and agree with them!

Change your definition of productivity – When you were employed by someone else, you were paid to produce some type of product. In my case it was well-taught little people. Now I am my own “employer,” and I get to decide what the “product” is. Perhaps it’s a clean house, or a weeded flower bed, or a well written article. Or as my own boss, I can tell myself to “take the day off!”

Volunteer: Share your time, talents and treasures with others. If you must combat the guilt of being somehow better off than other people, perhaps you could share your good fortune by giving of your time. Pick any group which appeals to your heart, and it is not difficult to find an abundance of volunteer opportunities!

Embrace being unbusy. It takes a little bit of study and practice to intentionally decide that it is OK not to go full-steam ahead all the time. After all, we burned the candle at both ends for an entire working career. For me, the practice of yoga helped with the first steps. And Josh Becker’s post at Becoming Minimalist makes note of some practical advice. It is important to let go of activities that don’t suit you. It is not necessary to have a jam-packed calendar. Set it Free. “Take time to let your soul breathe!” (His quote, not mine!)

Identify your own values – For Jeremy and I, it was a conversation over a glass of wine – “Now that we are retired, what is it that we truly value?” Of course, many of our lifelong values have remained steadfast, and a few have been adjusted or added as we refined the list. It’s not an easy conversation, and calls for some introspection over time. But once identified, I found it freeing to compare what I was doing with whether or not it aligned with our values. For example, we have determined that we value “Personal growth – creating, learning, exploring.” Creating a new quilt clearly fits, and becomes even more valuable in that light. Pat Doyle over at Retirement Transitions recently wrote about the stages of adult development. Ownership of your own values is an important part of stage 4. Go check out Pat’s post.

Plan something each day to bring you joy. It started as sort of a New Year’s Resolution. In my journal each morning, I plan something for the day that will bring joy. Such a simple suggestion, and the effects have been so positive. It seems that joy and guilt are sort of mutually exclusive. Planning a joyful activity gives legitimacy to the pursuit and puts it high on my ‘To-Do list.

Recognize that this is not a dress rehearsal. None of us know how long the Encore Voyage will last. Don’t wait. If there is something you want to do, it might be best to do it soon! Be spontaneous! Those other “should do’s” will still be there later!

So how about it Voyagers. Do you endure feelings of guilt because you no longer trudge off to a nine-to-five job? I’d love it if you’d share your thoughts and experiences!

Lynn

Encore Quotes – The Joy of Life

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I truly believe in the motto, “Life is about collecting experiences, not stuff!” We’ve been off in the last couple of weeks collecting our experiences in sunny Arizona. It seems I always try to have our next adventure somewhere in the planning stages. (Next month – Kauai!)

But new experiences don’t necessarily need to come from travel. Sometimes those experiences can be found in our own backyards. There are a million things around here to try! Just this morning I saw a “glass fusion” class advertised on Groupon! Our city has a rich community education program, or perhaps we might just check out the winter landscapes in one of our beautiful parks.

So how about you, fellow voyagers? Where will you locate your next “changing horizon?”

Lynn

Retirement Travel Togetherness – 13 Compromises to Consider!

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Hubs and I are getting ready to do some more Voyaging! Next week, we’ll head to Phoenix, Arizona, escaping what is predicted to be the next wave of snowy weather here in Idaho.

In our years on the Voyage, we’ve learned some things about traveling together. It hasn’t always come without some tensions and bumps in the road. But as I’m sure many other retirees can attest, there are compromises which must be made:

Relaxation vs. Adventure – I’m more of an adrenaline junkie. He’s more of a sip wine and read kind of guy.

Planned out or “Fly by the Seat of Our Pants” – Our compromise is usually a little of each. I like to do some initial research. We schedule things only as the events require. (We’ve been saddened when attractions were closed on the day we wanted to visit.)

On water vs. On land – Some people love cruising. Others can’t stand the idea of being stuck in the middle of the ocean. Some crave the beach, others, the mountains.

Fly, drive or travel by other means – My brother-in-law will die before he will board an airplane. Good to know.

Lots of driving or Little-to-no driving – Depending on the location, sometimes we take our own car, sometimes we rent, sometimes we hire car services, and sometimes it’s Uber or Lyft. And did I mention that a smaller type RV is in our future?

The question of music – Yes, No and What Type? – In the car, sometimes our music tastes differ. He likes classical, I prefer contemporary. Our best compromise is mid-seventies rock, turned up loud, with both of us singing at the top of our lungs! Reliving our college romance!

Where to stay, and how much work that will involve – I’ve heard folks say, “If I have to cook and make my own bed, it’s not a vacation. Sometimes we choose hotels, sometimes Airbnb , or rental condos, sometimes high-end resorts.

“Sleep in” or “Up and at ’em” – There is nothing more annoying than having someone try to wake you up when you’re on vacation. Or conversely, there is nothing worse than tapping your toe waiting for someone to get up and ready.

Temperature and weather considerations – It’s amazing how many people responded to my McCall post with comments about how we could just keep our Idaho snow. But some of us know that the correct clothing and preparedness makes this a winter playground. Many would disagree.

Amount of down time – This is an important one. Some people like to go, go, go, while others need or want more frequent breaks, and packing the day full of activities is not so fun.

Airports – When is the “right” time to arrive? – Surprisingly, this can be a point of contention. While hubs wants to leave absolutely nothing to chance, I’m a bit more of a “what’s the worst thing that can happen?” kind of girl. Depending on where we’re going and the travel conditions, we negotiate our departure times.

Shopping or No shopping – My advice is to be sensitive. If your hubs is not a browser, please don’t torture him. It’s his vacation, too. As for us, we spend little money acquiring more “stuff,” so it’s not really an issue. We both like to nose in unique, non-touristy, craftsman type of shops. (We do look for a “not cheesy” Christmas ornament to represent each adventure.)

Different Interests during different trips – We took a trip to the midwest, with the primary purpose of visiting all things Frank Lloyd Wright – including Taliesin in Wisconsin, and the Robie House in Chicago. Our first visit to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, over ten years ago, was for all things automotive – The Barrett-Jackson car auction and Bondurant High Performance Driving School for hubs. Our trips to St. Louis and New Orleans were primarily in search of jazz and blues.

In each of the above instances, communication is the key! It is far better to discuss things before you go, rather than to discover them after you arrive, or, even worse, to brood in silence when you find situations which test your compatibility!

As we return to Scottsdale this time, we’re soaking up warmth and a vibrant art scene enmeshed in Southwest culture.

So how about it, fellow voyagers? What compromises in travel have you needed to make as you go wandering during retirement?

Lynn

Encore Quotes ~ Find Time for Reading

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Hey there voyagers! I’ve spent a great deal of time this week thinking about books and reading. For myself, I’ve been staying up waaaaay too late reading, and I’ve just finished my 6th book of the new year.

I also spent time talking with a young friend whose 4th grade son does not like to read. I put together a grade level appropriate list of some of the best children’s books I could think of. A child who is not motivated to read is either struggling, or has not experienced the right book! What fourth grade boy would not be enthralled by the idea of owning a pet Grizzly bear (Gentle Ben by Walt Morey), or by the thought of living alone in a hollowed out tree and training a falcon! (My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George)

The best advice I could give her for developing a young reader is to read TO him! Aloud, and snuggled up in the most comfortable place she could find! I always told the parents of my students that their job was to keep the love of the book alive! Reading aloud to children helps them develop the imagination necessary for independent comprehension. And the right books will get them hooked!

And then I got to thinking about my fellow retirees. Are there any young people in your lives to whom you could read aloud? To whom you could give the very special gift of your time and reading expertise? Is there someone for whom you could light the reading fire?

Have a great weekend, and enjoy reading a wonderful book! I know I will!

Lynn

By the way, can find me on Goodreads here.

The New Year’s Paper Work Flood!

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Some people start diets, some people make resolutions to get fit, to eat right, to save more money. I don’t know what happens to me, but I become a paperwork fiend!

I must admit that I am an organizational guru! If you were to blindfold me, stand me at my front door, and ask me to put my hands on pretty much anything in my home, I’d be able to find it…unless it is made of paper.

I think it happens as a result of preparing for the next tax year. Time to file the remainder of the last year’s bill statements, and purge the files to prepare for 2018. But one thing always leads to another. I start filing one thing, and then end up cleaning out another storage box. That, in turn, leads to cleaning out the top drawer of my desk – gotta organize those paper clips, ya know – which leads to cleaning out the other desk drawers.

Wait…what is on all of these flash drives? I certainly don’t need to keep student data from 10 years ago, and hey – this one is full of photographs! Yikes – They need to be backed up to the cloud! Guess what I’m doing right this minute!

And now that I think about it, what is in all of these computer files? Time to do some deleting…and what about Dropbox – there’s lots of stuff in Dropbox that I surely no longer need, just taking up space…and One Note – what about that?!!!

By the time I’m done, I’ll have this place will be ship-shape. But did I mention that I have not yet taken my Christmas decorations down?

Lynn

Retirement Learning – I Can Take Off Your Head!

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The other day my girlfriend called me with a special request. “Don’t you have that program where you can put someone else’s head into a picture?” she asked. Ummmm…yeah, I have Photoshop, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I know how to USE IT!

She wanted to include some friends, who had been absent from an event, into a group Christmas photo – a tongue in cheek joke that said, “We’re thinking of you, and we missed you.”

Well on the Encore Voyage I have learned a couple of very, very important rules…

I can figure out ANYTHING with YouTube

and

Google is my friend

With digital photographs in hand, along with a couple of YouTube tutorials, I was off and running on a search and destroy mission to learn some new skills. And before you know it, our friends, Donna, Sandra, and Deb, were poking their absent little heads right outta that Christmas Tree!

I can move your head

Because I didn’t want to post a picture of all those folks without their permission, I thought I’d show you that I really can remove your head from your body! Fun, huh?!

I am certain that a professional photographer would have done it differently, and would have done a much better job. But for me the exercise had several benefits:

It barely scratched the surface of the things I could learn about Photoshop, and it piqued my interest to do so (along with a desire to get much better at it!)
It made me want to take and edit better photos (that, and looking at Terri Webster Schrandt’s pictures!)
It reminded me that there are so many other fascinating things to learn about, which require only some time and focus – all of the information in the world is available at my fingertips. Web design, desktop publishing, even playing my saxophone – Yep, I can learn all of those things, too.

This Photoshop exercise made me realize that retirement doesn’t mean that a person stops learning and exploring new things. In fact, I would never have had the time to play around like this during my pre-Voyage career! So how about it – What new skills are you learning to make your Voyage an adventure?

Lynn

Encore Quotes – Family Traditions

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I hope as the weekend approaches you take a moment to consider those Christmas traditions you hold dear. Are you doing things simply because you’ve “always done it that way?” Are you exhausting yourself chasing some self-imposed standard that no longer meets your needs? Instead, I would invite you to consider which activities, decorations, and traditions truly hold a special meaning for you. Pursue those! Have a peaceful and heartfelt weekend!

Lynn

Retiring Traditions

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As you may know, hubs and I have no children. For the record, I had everyone else’s children for the best hours of their days. For.Thiry.Years!

Back in the days, when they found out we didn’t have kids, people would say, “Who will take care of you when you get old?”

My tongue in cheek answers were:

“Having someone to wipe your DROOL is NOT a good reason to have children!”

“I don’t know…I’ll call you from the Caribbean
and let you know how it all worked out!”

Up until now, we’ve spent Thanksgiving in North Idaho with his mom, and Christmas here at home with my family. But things are starting to change. The parents-in-law have all passed on, and the numbers available for big shindigs are dwindling. The nieces and nephews each have their own families and traditions. For the past couple of years, there has been quite a bit of leftovers from a 15-pound turkey!

So this year, hubs and I are approaching our Christmas Traditions with a little more intention. We actually sat (with wine, of course) and had the discussion about which of our traditions should be non-negotiable, and which ones we could reinvent.

Surprisingly, neither one of us was opposed to traveling during the month of November or early December. Or even in January. Both of us want to be in our home for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. We will approach certain traditions with mindfulness:

Decorating our small tree together, with the ornaments we’ve collected from each year since we were dating. Again, wine (or perhaps hot cocoa with Cinnamon Schnapps) will be involved.
Making my mom’s Divinity recipe
Baking Christmas cookies – perhaps with my sisters if they’re available. It doesn’t matter that I’ll probably give many away, or put them in the freezer.
Finding the lights – Putting the dog in the back seat of the pickup, grabbing a couple of Starbucks specials, and going in search of festive lights and decorations.
Christmas Concerts – We plan to attend as many Christmas art events as we can squeeze in, without getting overwhelmed. Friday night we saw Elf – The Musical, and it was magical! Trans-Siberian Orchestra is coming up!
The Decorations – We’ve decided that we don’t need to kill ourselves decorating our home for the benefit of others. This year, I decorated only with those items that make my heart sing – The antique Santa toy that belonged to my mom, the carved Santa made by my brother-in-law.
Christmas Eve – We’re keeping Christmas Eve for the two of us – quality time, outstanding food, warm fire. The reason for the season.
Charitable giving – For many years, we have filled a local Toys for Tots box. I mean, seriously…just because we have no kids, doesn’t mean hubs isn’t just a great big one! We love shopping in the toy department. He always tends to pick out toy cars, trucks and construction equipment – Go figure! This year, we have another fun idea to try. But that’s another post.

I guess the important part is that we’ve given ourselves permission to intentionally alter or change entirely those tradition we’ve held for years, when they no longer meet our needs. As we age, we don’t want to be seen as “charity cases,” invited to people’s homes because we are old people with no place to go (Ooooooh – that sounds yucky, even to me!) Nope, not us. We’re going to take this holiday bull (or reindeer) by the horns and create our own Encore Holiday Season! Someday, we might even board a cruise ship on the day after Christmas. Who knows! I’ll call you from the Caribbean and let you know how it’s working out!

Lynn

The Best Things About the Voyage!

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Good morning! If you’ve popped over here to check out An Encore Voyage, there’s a really good chance that you were directed here by Donna over at Retirement Reflections! You see, Donna does a weekly Sunday Guest Post series, and for reasons that completely befuddle the mind, she asked me to participate! How cool is that!

If this is your first time visiting here, WELCOME! We are on an Encore Voyage because, after long-time careers, we sort of got thrown into the deep end ———– um…we found ourselves both unemployed! Or as hubs likes to describe it,

“We were given the opportunity to reinvent ourselves!”

And so we entered the early retirement group – even though we weren’t planning on it!

Since this voyage began, we’ve learned a great deal!

We’ve learned that sometimes being together 24/7 can be a bit of a challenge. But guess what? It’s really a lot of fun if you follow some simple advice.

Admittedly, we needed to do some simplifying and minimizing to maintain our lifestyle. But in the end, it has brought us a clearer focus about what’s really important.

We started up our Encore Career – We didn’t want to be just “finished,” but we didn’t want to start over from scratch either. So we reinvented ourselves and created a business that we can be passionate about – and we do it from home and on our own schedules!

And we’ve learned that this type of “retirement” is a total blast! It doesn’t look anything like the things we feared retirement might be. And there are lots of things that make this encore gig of ours a delightful experience.

One of those is the time I now have to be creative on this blog, and to engage with others in the blogging community. It’s a little weird that in just a few short months, I have developed on-screen relationships with so many other bloggers. It’s like we’ve gotten to know each other. And as I said earlier, one of my very favorite virtual friends is Donna at Retirement Reflections. Donna is my neighbor to the north – She and her husband are from Vancouver Island, British Columbia…(Lucky ducks!) Donna is adventuresome, organized, just a tiny bit nerdy like me – and a fabulous writer! So if you haven’t gotten the chance, be sure to click on over and check her out! She’s awesome-sauce!

And thanks again, Donna, for inviting me to participate in your Sunday Guest Post series!

Lynn

Encore Quotes – What Really Matters?

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Can you believe we’re heading into Thanksgiving already? Wasn’t it just summertime about a second ago? And before we know it, Christmas will have come and gone. In all the rush, I hope you will take a moment each morning and ask yourself two questions:

What’s really important today?

What’s not so important at all?

I wish you a peaceful weekend, taking the time to enjoy those things that really matter!