"No matter how much money you have, you can't buy more time." Bill Gates wrote that in a recent article (Three Things I Learned from Warren Buffett). If anyone should know what money can't buy, I guess it would be Bill Gates.
As someone who has always tried very hard to be constantly efficient and vigilant about time wasters, retirement poses a mental challenge. I've reached a stage in my life where it should be OK to have a more leisurely pace and even to waste a little time. But even three years into this retirement project, I'm still racked by guilt if I don't feel like my day has been productive enough.
But what does a "productive day" look like when you're retired? I want to have a full life, but I don't want to exchange the work treadmill for some other self-created treadmill. It seems obvious that I need to mentally redefine productivity in terms of quality more than quantity, but of course that is easier said than done. I have important volunteer obligations which certainly make me feel valuable and productive. But I need to take care that volunteerism doesn't become a "job" that makes me feel guilty when I'm not fully devoted to it. I didn't work so hard to earn a pension just to substitute unpaid work that carries the same baggage.
For me in retirement, the assessment of productivity at the end of the day needs to be selfish. Did I do something today to nurture my body? Did I do something today to nurture my spirit? Did I do something today to expand my mind? When I can answer "yes" to each of those questions every day, or better yet, when those things are so automatic that I no longer need to interrogate myself, then I have succeeded at the Retirement Balancing Act.
By the way, the young woman in that stunning photo is our daughter Cindy on a South Africa trip with her friends. So far, her balance (both physical and metaphorical) is much better than mine.
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