You leave work for the day and everyone says, “Have a good time!”…or “See you when I see you!”…or, “Don’t forget to write or send us a postcard!” You shuffle the briefcase, or tote bag or whatever is in your hands, and check out of work. You stop and give a hearty wave aimed at all your colleagues who are still hard at it and say a breathy, “See yah.” And when you drive away with the job in your rearview mirror you think about the good times you are going to have.
Later you are sitting on a lounge chair on a deck with your feet up and perusing the travel brochures and maps you have laid out, planning this and that in your mind and marking places on the maps and folding certain important pages in the brochures. You remember what the comedian Robert Orben said once on a TV show, “A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.” And that’s how you feel and the attitude you want to take from now on. The idea of an ideal vacation is not working or not having to work and having no appointments. And that is how you want to spend all the time you will have on your hands in your retreat. You want to have the attitude and approach every waking moment like it is just a long vacation. That would easily place all the working years in the proper place … behind you.
The monotonous work schedule is gone, the alarm clock is now a clock-radio, and the morning coffee can be drunk at leisure instead of gulps while heading toward the car. The morning newspaper starts the day with a variety of stimuli. Then the TV continues the stimuli until it makes your brain wander and wonder what you are doing every day. Then you remember: this new retirement thing is a period of time that a person, you, spends away from home, school, or business – usually in order to relax or travel. It is the longest vacation of your life, something you have been saving up to do for years, and now you have to think “vacation” every morning when you rise. That is the right attitude to have in a period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation, especially one with pay granted by an employer, but in this case all the money you saved from wages from your employer, and the retirement fund, and the Social Security you have been paying into all your working life.
Every retiree should think of every day as a holiday, a day off work. After all, you have earned it and deserve its advantages and the luxury of free time to do what you want to, which may include traveling, more golf or tennis or bowling, more sports bars, and maybe just enjoying the time off, and off, and off.
There are so many things to do. Taking train trips is one. Make the best out of your rail vacation and ride on multiple Amtrak routes for a complete experience of long-distance train travel and seeing the country without having to steer the car. With a little work by a smart travel planner like you, and shortcuts like all-inclusive resorts, a retiree’s vacation can be fun for all time. Or try something different for a change and take a cruise on a ship to a luxurious hotel on a beach, on an island in paradise. After all, this is a long vacation and there are so many options outside the lounger and the TV. One day at a time becomes more of a pleasure these days than a punch-the-clock drudgery – just don’t count them one at a time but live them in a string.
Patrick M. Kennedy does full-service editing and writing and has published several books. http://www.abetterword.com/ and http://www.funwithretirement.com/