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Times have changed. Six months ago, ten minutes of sitting still felt impossible, I got restless very easily. Since retiring, I can happily sit in the sunroom for an hour simply watching the clouds float by. I actually find it very therapeutic. It reminds me of my ten-year-old self, drifting off watching clouds from the classroom window instead of doing my work.
I keep coming back to this topic. Having time that’s truly mine has changed something fundamental in me. Somewhere between those daydreaming school days and starting work, I seemed to have misplaced the ability to just…be, I suppose is the correct word.
The work-a-day world, with its pressures and deadlines, had quietly shut down that part of me, the part that could just sit and watch clouds without needing a reason. Retirement, by removing the external pressure, has simply allowed that innate, childlike capacity for wonder and ease to resurface.
I wonder if everyone rediscovers this easily, or if some people fight it, maybe that old work-world guilt makes doing nothing feel wrong, even when you’ve earned the right to do it. I suppose the world of work taught me that being busy was good, stillness not so much.
I personally find it wonderful. I used to meditate a few days a week to clear my mind. I don’t feel the need anymore. My rediscovered ability to simply spend time doing essentially nothing has filled that need, I guess it’s a form of meditation without the focus or mantra.
This ability to do nothing and feel no guilt in doing nothing is, paradoxically, a springboard toward productivity and mental insight. Writing articles only seems to happen after periods of sunroom mindfulness. At other times I find it impossible to think of anything to say. And any problems I might have seem to find solutions during these quiet periods.
My time in the sunroom has drawn back a curtain and revealed a paradox: it seems the most effective way I can be productive is during periods of deep, guilt-free unproductivity. It’s the antithesis of what I formerly believed. True breakthroughs require the quiet processing time that simply watching a cloud provides. If you want to solve a tough problem or find a fresh thought, don’t press harder, step away and do nothing.
Without conscious effort, I’ve reclaimed the part of my mind the working world had quietly shut down. The true gift of my retirement isn’t freedom from work, but the freedom to remember who I was before the world told me who I had to be, that ten-year-old gazing out the window, whose peaceful, non-productive contemplation was, in fact, laying the mental groundwork for an entire lifetime of insight. By honoring that stillness, I’ve not just retired, I’ve found my way back to clarity.
I find the irony of the situation delightfully amusing. If you’re reading this flow of words and thoughts, it’s strange to think that it’s a product of doing absolutely nothing. Try figuring that truth out with corporate efficiency and logic..
From my years of training and indoctrination, I believe that my mind is controlled by the brain: the left hemisphere looks for things in the world to acquire, and the right hemisphere tries to find my proper place in the world for meaning (1). Modern neuroscience shows they need to work together, yet our culture prizes the left’s efficiency with logic, language game, accumulation, while neglecting the right’s mastery for connection and wonder. Only when survival and ambition quiet down does the mind truly and fully engages with life. The world reveals its hidden beauty beyond words.
The cup of coffee contains the whole universe: warm sun, flavor of the earth and the beans, taste of the seasons, light reflection, soft sound with every sip. The moment is complete, without thinking “myself” or “my retirement” into it.
(1) Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary (2009)
It seems my retirement is simply a reclamation of the Right Mind—a quiet rebellion against the cultural push for the left’s accumulation. To realize that the universe is contained in a passing cloud is to understand that wealth isn’t acquired; it’s perceived.
What wonderful insights! Although I participate in several rewarding post-retirement activities, one of my favorite things to do is sit on the deck each morning and watch clouds drift eastward with the westerlies.
I read and reread your piece because it is the most important thing in life that I need to rediscover, .Every time I want to find that inner space, that boredom that used to unleash both calm and creativity, I find myself instead turning to our finances. Not because finances are a cause for concern (like they used to be early in life) but because that gives me a sense of control that my restless mind craves. There is always something to analyze, to plan, to understand, yet none of it is mandatory. I even paid for transcendental meditation training with the idea that I had paid for something I would surely take it seriously and commit to it, see gym memberships for many! My inborn temperament combined with a lifetime of managing things for others and the immigrant mentality of always striving has left me with an inability to just relax. After a big wedding (2 receptions 1 ceremony) for our daughter at the end of this month, I hope to be able to find the solace and space that I so clearly need after the festivities, but the first thing that comes to mind is all the things that I must get done after that. I fear that I will never learn how to just be still and eventually mind will collapse under the weight of it all because I never gave it the respite it needed.
Thank you Mark for the reminder that it is possible to find that serenity and peace even as I am one of those that fights agains it.
I hear you. That restlessness you describe, the need to always be managing something. I wish I had a solution, but I think that’s part of the trap, isn’t it? Treating stillness as another problem to solve. Maybe after the wedding, instead of tackling that list, you could pick just one moment, coffee in the morning, five minutes after lunch, and just sit. Not to meditate or achieve anything. Just to prove to yourself that nothing falls apart if you pause.
I hope you find your way to that space
.
Mark, I will surely try and take your advice-it’s a lifetime of habits and mindset that needs to shift and your post was inspirational and resonant.
Having unstructured time with no responsibilities is indeed the biggest gift of retirement for me, three months in. I spent my entire working life always racing a clock or a calendar, never feeling like I was quite on top of things, often thinking I should be doing even more.
Oddly, I’m still doing stuff. I still have several academic writing projects I’m working on. I do volunteer stuff at church and I’m on the HOA board. But it all feels so manageable compared to what my working life was like that I’m constantly delighted by how relaxed and not pressed for time I am.
I will say that I’m still adjusting. There are things I thought I’d be getting done by now—home organization chores, volunteering for a local nonprofit, etc. I’m a bit discombobulated, to be honest. I’m giving myself the rest of the calendar year to recalibrate, and then by January, hopefully I’ll be more purposeful.
Discombobulated—I love this word! A great US addition to the English language. You may be slightly discombobulated, but this early stage of retirement is wonderful, don’t you think?
Yeah, I think many of us put ourselves under a great amount of pressure upon entering adulthood. I wonder if it’s the hunter/gatherer in our past that makes us strive for more and more in the present.
At any rate, I’m glad you found your way back to peace and serenity. Not everyone does, you know.
That’s a sad ending thought. But I guess it’s true.
I began a phased, gradual retirement at the age of 67. It took another nine years for me to retire completely, although I did have a professional writing gig for a bit longer.
That retirement allowed me to do things that were not possible while I was fully employed. Longer vacations and travel, for example. I have had more time for cooking, baking and writing including time for creating blog and YouTube content. Oh yes, there were changes to my daily routine. It was no longer necessary to jump out of bed at the crack of dawn (or earlier) and my daily routine became flexible. I have weekends to myself. I learned a lot about myself as I had the time to focus on “other things”.
My dreams changed. I would create designs in my sleep and do other types of work-related problem solving. Now I float serenely with music playing in my mind. I read a lot, beginning at 4:30am or so and continuing until 7:30 am. I take occasional naps, but I prefer not to as this interferes with my sleep pattern. However, I need to do certain medical maintenance each night, so I awake a couple of times.
When I did finally, fully retire that was a good thing, as a serious health situation required several years of intense medical treatment, currently ongoing. We relocated about 2,000 miles, too. My full retirement was filled with hospital stays, medical procedures, a GP and four “ologists” who were doing their best to keep me alive.
During that period there were frequent psych evaluations. I would be asked “Was I doing okay?” and more detailed questions about my mental health and physical condition. I’d joke and say “Well, I have had all of these new experiences; emergency room visits, hospital stays, blood transfusions, pseudomonas infection, kidney failure, catheters, surgeries, nephrostomy tubes, CT scans and MRIs, chemotherapy with the accompanying side effects, wound care as a regular routine, a weight decline to 135 pounds, as well as getting all of the hair burned off my butt, and even a physical therapist and a walker, too. It seems in my life that I’d saved the best for last”. Then I would laugh. And then we had a serious chat. I had avoided most of that kind of stuff from the age of 13 to age 76.
So, my retirement took a detour and provided new challenges. There are things that must be done, but there is a lot of available time for other things. But there are times when the energy simply isn’t there.
My full retirement is completely different than I expected. That’s the way it is and I do miss being on the water. Life continues, even if it may be not optimal. Today I’m working on a solar panel upgrade to the one I installed on the Class B RV a year before my illness.
“Saved the best for last”, that’s the dark humor that gets you through the unsurvivable. And yet here you are, still reading before dawn, working on solar panels, still living with intention despite it all… respect.
Well said, Mark. Had your article been available to me back when I retired soon after turning 65 in 2018, I would have sent it to many folks. When we got together with friends, by coincidence it seemed like the others were in the already retired camp, or in the still employed camp. With the former group, we’d talk about pretty much everything, aside from work. With the latter group, I’d be asked well-meaning questions like whether I was OK; or had I found any suitable part time work, and so on. One good friend even detailed all the activities he was signing up for in anticipation of his impending retirement, so he wouldn’t need to worry about having all this free time with “nothing to do”.
To those who were worried, I asked if they had seen the movie “Shawshank Redemption” and of course they all had. I reminded them of the scene where Morgan Freeman’s character tried to explain to some of the upset younger inmates why the character portrayed by James Whitmore had taken his own life shortly after being paroled. It was because he had spent his entire adult life in an institution behind bars, and each day was tightly scheduled. He could not handle the stress of living on his own without a regimented schedule to follow. He had become an “Institutional Man”. And I suggested “Some of you are sounding like Institutional Men (and Women)”. I heard nervous laughter. I assured them that I would have no problem with finding plenty of things to fill my schedule with. And now sometimes it is too full!
That ‘Institutional Man’ analogy is good, I think it highlights the fear many people have of an unscheduled life. Many retirees replace the office schedule with the tyranny of the social schedule. They miss the point: freedom isn’t the ability to fill your calendar; it’s the freedom to pause.
Indeed.
I used to find the solution to a problem often showed up while I was showering or driving, thinking of something else. Probably a similar effect.
I’m too busy singing in the shower to have rational thoughts. 😁
That happened to me more times than I can count.
Me too. If I had a writing project or a talk coming up, it would often start coming together while I was driving to or from work or taking a walk.
During 40 of the nearly 50 years working I was in the office at 6:00am and left around 6:00pm. I worked at home after hours, I took my laptop everywhere including on vacations. I never stopped working.
I rarely can sit and do nothing. I am up by 5:00 am every day with no reason, today it was 4:30.
I am on my iPad all the time looking up things, checking facts or writing for my blog or HD. I do that while traveling as well.
I admit it, I’m warped, but I can’t help it. The reality is this is how I relax. Time on my iPad takes my mind off things I rather not think about
But I’m always thinking about something, ideas are always popping in my head. If I embrace doing nothing especially after 1:00 pm it usually means I have fallen asleep.
I’m on my balcony – not a cloud in the sky, but I notice the bright colors on the trees. Zzzzzzzzzz
The mind keeps its own restless hours; that iPad is your sunroom refuge, keeping your tempest of worries at bay. If it keeps you afloat, it’s the right path for you.