Sunday, May 1, 2011

Countdown to Retirement

Today begins the countdown to retirement! Two months from today my career life will end, and I will be starting the next phase of my life.

It seems to me that we live our lives in three phases: childhood, adulthood, and retirement.   During childhood, we have an innocence about us.  Our lives are filled with joy about all of the new discoveries, learnings, and play.  If we are lucky, we are safe and loved.  Time goes slowly, and we can't wait for our next birthday.  During adulthood, we discover autonomy, love, work, and pleasure.  We struggle with money issues, relationships, starting a family, and careers.  Life is exciting and hard!  We have disappointments and exhilaration.  Stress becomes a constant companion, and we often forget how to play.  It was during this phase of my life that I discovered the title to this blog: Joy2Day

Joy2Day has become my daily mantra.  My career has been with one educational employer my whole life.  Curiously enough, my career has been divided into 3 roles: teacher, mentor, HR director.  Amazing to be able to do this in one educational setting!  I have been very fortunate.  When I was in my mentoring phase, I discovered an appreciation for joy one day when I watched my mentor, the HR director at that time, take a moment out of his busy day to stop and literally smell the roses before a meeting!  This was a full-body, live in the moment experience for him.  You could see him leave behind the baggage of the day and embrace the fragrance and beauty before him. This was eye opening to me.  I had always heard that saying, but had never truly understood it.  

Later when I (to my surprise!) became the HR director, I remembered that event as I was struggling with the stress of the job.  That was when I made the promise to myself to find joy in my life every single day!  Some days it has been very difficult to find joy, but it is always there: my sons' smiles or phone calls, my husband's presence at my side on the couch, a sunset, a deer in our yard, birds at the feeder, a tulip popping through the ground.  Something is always there if I only open my consciousness to finding it!  

Now as I am transitioning from the adulthood phase to the retirement phase, I hope that I can continue Joy2Day as my companion.  I hope that, with the extra time available to me, I will find joy and not the boredom or restlessness that many retirees experience.  I am striving to fill my days with simple joy, and I want to take you on that journey with me!  

Have you found your joy today?

1 comment:

  1. My joy today was that it was a sunny and nice day and I was able to spend an enjoyable afternoon with people playing games.

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