Hmmm. That might explain some things. Like why I seem to struggle to fulfill all my retirement dreams. Mind you, those dreams were concocted in those moments during a business meeting or during business travel when my mental hard drive was whirring at idle. One vision took place in an easy chair with newspaper in hand, pouring over every page and checking every article. Another was of the deer and turkeys I would meet during a wander in the woods. Yet another was of impromptu trips to explore remote or never travelled destinations, staying long enough to understand the history and what it might be like to feel like a local.
It hasn't quite played out that way. There's still an appointment calendar, something I thought I'd be able to shed. And the long gaps I expected in that calendar haven't materialized. Volunteer activities filled in some of those gaps, along with family milestones and celebrations. And the daily clock seems to march at the same pace it used to at work. Start one project and it's suddenly noon. Sit down for a bite to eat and it's 2:00, and surf a little on the net and it's time for bed. Wha??
The paradox is I have more time available, but less time for immersive activities. If truth be told, a time study would reveal that there are plenty of hours in the day unscheduled and available for all kinds of productive use. But back to that "time spent online" thing. Immersion in Twitter and Facebook rabbit trails cause the clock minute hand to jump in 30 minute increments. Email notes I would have ignored or skimmed rapidly now sometime get a full hearing. Offline, it can take three times as long as it used to take to arrange my garage, or wash a car. Vacant space in the calendar gets consumed, but often the to do list remains unaffected.
The feeling of wide-open time vista's never came to pass. Where are the time-wasters? I looked to national statistics:
Not much help there. Don't watch much TV, never did much socializing. The reading thing is relatable. Can't keep from falling asleep in my chair when I read, but if you include reading online, that wouldn't be as dramatic either. Thinking seems to have gone way up, though, not down. At work we never had much time for it. It was all doing. Too bad, too, as we probably would have been much more productive with more time to think things through. Computers and phone usage? Oh yes, now there's a fact. The bubble size even seems terribly understated, especially if you think the average American spends more than 10 hours in front of a screen per day. That's including television time, so maybe it's half of that. Still, that's nearly 30% of every waking hour. In my case, that's probably not far from accurate.
What IS important is the time used for watching the extended family grow, getting to know the latest generation. Or spending time hearing stories from the oldest generation. Or creating more of your own new stories - and writing them down. Or learning something new. Or casually reconnecting with old friends. Or exploring those new vista's.
To the point about writing, how about writing down some "lessons" that I'm relearning in this new, unstructured lifestyle:
- You make time for what is fun, not necessarily what is important.
- The meaningful stuff often reveals itself only in hindsight.
- To stop learning is to spend less time thinking. To spend less time thinking is to slide downhill faster.
It would probably help if the weather would cooperate with your flight plans :)
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