HOUSE
What would you do if you didn’t have to do anything?
Lately, I seem to know a lot of people who have reached that point in life when they no longer need to work for a living.
Circumstances vary: they may have sold a business; they may have come into an inheritance; or they may have simply retired.
They are standing at that nexus in life we all dreamed of back when we were slicing onions as a prep cook at a supper club on the interstate exit to a cold college town.
They have no reason to get out of bed at 5 a.m. or 5 p.m., for that matter.
I make a point of asking them this question: How are you using all that unstructured time?
The immediate response, almost unilaterally and surprisingly, is perplexed silence.
They react as if they haven’t given it much thought. After hemming, most reply with some version of this: “I teach a Bible study on Sunday.”
“I deliver Meals on Wheels twice a week.”
“I do crosswords.” “I work in the yard.” “I volunteer at a thrift shop.”
“I chop cedar at the ranch.”
A surprisingly common response is: “I really don’t know. “
You can understand how this is possible. If you were a teacher and took sum- mers off, or a college student with a month away at Christmas or an office worker who took a twoweek vacation, when anyone asks you on your first day back, what you did during your time off, and you can’t come up with a concise answer – that is what retirement must be like.
I find this fascinating. When you are working, every hour of every day is programmed, marked, scheduled and ticked off as you go through your routine. You can look back to your desk calendar and see exactly what you were doing at 9:53 a.m. on a Tuesday in March six years ago.
On the other hand, a typical retiree day might look like this: 4 a.m. Get up to use the bathroom.
4:05 a.m. Decide to stay up, fix a cup of coffee and eat a bowl of oatmeal.
4:35 a.m. Do yesterday’s crossword.
5 a.m. Go back to bed. Before you know it, it’s 9 a.m. and time for second breakfast.
After that, you can’t really start any new project, because you have a physical therapy appointment at 2:30 p.m. Between now and then, every activity centers around making it to this appointment. You plan your shower time to give your hair time to dry, lay out your workout clothes, plan lunch to be sustaining but not filling, take a nap and pack a snack.
Then you have to leave a little early, so you can go by the post office and bank, pick up the dry cleaning and then have time afterward to grab some pad thai for dinner.
Back home at 5 p.m., the day is essentially done. Time to wind down and prepare for bed.
In the middle of the night, you get the urge again and the cycle starts over.
The day passes, the week passes, then the month, the year and one day you wake up crippled, wrinkled and dead.
You realize retired life looks nothing like the posters of retirees on the walls in the bank lobby. Fit, tanned, silver-haired men cavorting barefoot on the beach alongside a platinum coiffed lady smiling and playing volleyball.
More like a bald man in sweatpants and three days of whiskers, waiting for his table to be called to get in line for the $5 lunch at the Silver Sunsets Senior Center.
Still, I am perplexed by those who do have unlimited amounts of free time unfettered by obligations to earn a living, struggling to articulate what they do with that time.
Please help research this phenomenon. Ask those you know who no longer need to work for a living, how they are spending their time, not to judge, just out of curiosity.
Then ask yourself: What would you be doing if you didn’t have to do anything?
Phil Houseal is a writer and owner of Full House PR. www. FullHousePR.com.
