Days Well Spent

As a retiree, your days are uncharted and unblemished, each and every moment of your life is unscheduled.

I’m raw ambition. What errands should be run? What household chore should be conquered? Let’s stack the social engagements, brunch to a hike to meeting up with friends, let’s sleep when we’re dead! Or let’s sleep now, squeeze in a cat nap, perhaps take a road trip, hop on a flight or even go on a cruise? Surely there’s enough time now to do whatever comes to mind.

Sometimes I’ll devise a list of things I plan to do and then observe myself not doing any of them, almost as if absurdly proving to some invisible taskmaster that no one, not even me, will decide what I’m going to do today.

The best days, I’ve found, are not the ones where I try (and often fail) to squeeze in a lifetime’s worth of fun and productivity, but the ones that are spontaneous and spur of the moment. This might be going to a museum, or out to breakfast. It might be sleeping in or going offline, taking a day trip or just doing several loads of laundry.

I try to plan my days with myself in mind: What will future me be glad to have done? What can I do to minimize the feeling that the tick tick tick of the “60 Minutes” clock is counting down my senior years?