Waiting for Death
Your life is what you make of it
It struck me recently that I am now at the part of my life where I am literally waiting to die. Not in the sense that I have a terminal illness (unless you want to classify life as a terminal illness for everyone), but rather that what had previously defined my life, work, was no longer driving my life with my recent retirement.
My life, as with most people who have lived this long, fell into 4 phases. Phase 1 - Childhood & Education: My time at home and school before I branched out on my own. Phase 2 - Work & Family: Advancing my career and building a family. Phase 3 - Master of the Universe: The peak of my career successes, with family mainly out of the house. Phase 4 - ?: Stepping over the edge of the cliff. Watch out for the step; the transition from Phase 3 to 4 is a doozy, as I found out.
What I plan for my Phase 4 is giving back as best I can to the world in general and those around me - thus this blog. What it is to others is up to them and their interests; however, to use it for nothing more than Pickle Ball until you die seems a waste of the opportunity you have in this time of your life.
What is helping my transition is the work I have been putting into understanding and adopting Stoic principles in my life over the past decade. Understanding that what really matters is not my external possessions and accolades, but rather how I am living my life in alignment with Stoic virtue.
Without this, I think I would have been lost, without the constant feedback and interaction that was typical in my prior career. And I think this is why, for so many, retirement is not a time of contentment, but rather a rapid descent into the grave as those who depended on external validation throughout their lives are suddenly left with the deafening silence that is retirement.
Focusing on developing myself and my character is a lifelong journey that I will never complete. There is no goal; I will never be a Stoic Sage, but that does not mean that I cannot work every day to get a little bit closer to that objective. And by making these advances, I am both giving my life purpose, and I feel, helping make my world a better place for those I love and live with.
My life is what I make of it. While I have time left, I will do what I can to try and not waste the opportunity I have been given.