The Art Of Retirement

 Especially when you still have this business that I have ended up running here too.

I've been trying to work on this as I have been retired for two years now but I have also somehow ended up running a business when I thought it would have been up running and sold off by now.  Oh well, here we are I guess.  It's almost there (well half way there) and it's only been 8 or is it 9 years now?!!

That aside, there's been a really bad time for me in terms of settling into not doing things.  The structure of years of habit forming activity means that I still mainly, get up, come into the office and clear the backlog of emails and actions I need to do for an hour or two then go and grab a coffee and on Mondays and Tuesdays, have a hearty breakfast but the rest of the week, these days, I do not eat until around 1 pm a little later if I can so I have just two meals a day.

So perhaps, there is a routine I can play around with but I also have to revolve around P too.  

The current down has also stopped me being Mr. Maintenance and most of that is bloody mindedness rather than apathy although, to be fair, that is also part of the trouble too.  I can see that this isn't a good place to be but sometimes that's the way my mind works when it is riding the black dog and knowing that it isn't the right thing to do is quite different from stopping yourself doing it or changing course.  This not sully self-destructive behaviour is difficult to shake off and difficult to burst through especially when the problem isn't entirely  resting with you.

I watched a YouTube video last night on a chap who had retired and worked his way through this and past all the dreamy half romantic adverts of what retirement looks like.  Yes it isn't every day is a holiday on a Cruise Ship or silver sanded tropical island.  I have to say that I found Mauritius, when we did the trip, not entirely up to the expectations built up of how it would be.  Don't get me wrong, it was nice but it wasn't all you would expect it to be either.

This chap just made use of his time and did things he wanted to do and just enjoyed doing them.  Walks almost every day, Gym trips, Padel (I think it is called) and other things that were habit forming in a different way and so he had time for a coffee (if he was at home) with no phone, no PC, no book even, just time for the coffee and enjoying that.  It was an interesting take on things and worth a look for me especially.  

I tend to work at least 3 or 4 hours every day on the business, it will be a 24 x 7 x 365 operation and whilst I hope that it will not need too much looking after, I need to keep up with it and so, in a way I am training myself to do that.  I have to be careful, once it is launched, not to be running it full time but we will come to that when it is launched (not long now for half of it anyway).

I suppose things will settle down over time and a pattern will emerge, one that I can work alongside rather than full-time on.  I do fancy doing some walks, we are blessed with footpaths here though they can be muddy in places.  I fancy the walk from here to a local hostelry and a nice local beer and then a nice meander home.  It's hard surface on the route I am thinking of and a nice reward at the middle of the walk!  

At least I can see that there is something that I can change to loosen myself from this current situation.