You’ve probably noticed that
summer is sliding toward fall. The kids are back in school, the leaves are
starting to turn, the sorrel is head high, and last spring's yucca blooms have been transformed to drying pods. And I’m content. I’ve had a marvelous summer. Several good trips and
a bunch of other fun events contributed to that. And as a bonus, I’ve had a most
successful “return to fitness” campaign, and I’m feeling healthy and strong—and very happy about that. Reflecting
on this process has helped me articulate something about the mixed joys and
pitfalls of retirement—and some life lessons about the balance between ease and
commitment.
Obviously, one of the real
pleasure of being retired, as anyone craving the moment when they’ll retire might
imagine, is the luxury of pretty much setting my own schedule. My days are
busy, but my schedule is flexible and elastic, remarkably free of coercive
scheduling. There are exceptions, of course—doctor’s appointments, trash
pick-up, meetings, and other events scheduled by or with someone else. But mostly, I get to shape my days as I'd like them to be.
This sounds lovely—and it is—but it
has its costs. One of those, oddly, is trouble finding time to do things I want
to do. The problem is that the wide-openness of my schedule allows me to not
actively think about setting aside time for things that aren’t obligatory. I have to do my online editing work at
some point each day, and I have to do
assorted life-maintenance chores at times. So
I plan time around getting those things done. But then there are the things
that I don’t have to do, but I intend to do. Like getting some exercise
every day. This is where the ease of my retirement un-schedule trips me up. The
tasks that live in intention get set aside. The day slips away, and somehow, I didn’t
have time for those things.
So several things contributed to
my getting seriously on track this summer—and I’m hoping it’s for the long
haul. First, my fall orthopedic crisis made me inactive through the winter, and
I paid the price—in energy level, mood, strength, and general engagement in my
life (the scarcity of blog entries being one indication of this disengagement).
That was a wake-up call.
Then, a planned spring trip to
Southern Utah promised an opportunity to see a part of red rock country I
haven’t visited for years. As it turned out, we didn’t make precisely that trip, but thinking about it brought to mind a trail there that I really want
to walk again. And with that thought, I had to acknowledge that I was nowhere
near fit enough to do it and enjoy the experience.
The final nudge came from a bit
of wisdom circulated on a listserve I read regularly. It’s nominally for
psychologists and largely about psych topics, but the moderator also
interweaves other interesting themes—special needs animals, Buddhism, feminism,
racism, and—apropos of my point here—health and fitness. This particular post
offered fitness tips. Now, I know that there are zillions of lists and fitness
experts offering “10 tips for getting fit,” and these were probably no more or
less wise than all the others. But the timing was just right, and two of these ideas
really stuck with me. In my mental shorthand, these are “no exit ramps” and
“merge with traffic.”
The first is pretty
self-explanatory, familiar to anyone who’s tried to stay focused on any
challenging goal: don’t give yourself excuses, or you’ll be off the track for
sure. The second was more of a surprise to me. It has to do with living in the
real world and avoiding extreme, excessive, impossible rules, “merging” with
the flow of realistic demands of the moment—an out-of-town trip, a task that
genuinely erases time for anything else, fatigue that seems to require a break, extended time spent with someone important. Gently merging with these moments can save your sanity and honor your relationships.
Now, I recognize that item 2
seems to contradict item 1: isn’t merging sort of like an exit ramp? I’ve found
that it’s not, as long as I’m really conscious about it: “OK, this (whatever) isn’t
perfect for my plan, but it’s important/delightful right now, so I’m going with
it. It’s not an exit ramp. I’m merging, not getting off the road. In the next
moment, I’m back on track.”
Probably the key to all of this
was managing that pesky scheduling-in-retirement thing. I had to override my
automatic cruise setting and actually, intentionally plan to get some serious
exercise every day. I had to prioritize my efforts at returning to a state of
physical well-being that I’d let slide. And I’ve
been happily, remarkably consistent in this: I make time for my activity of the day, and
then I schedule other things (the ones under my control, that is) around that.
No letting it slide, thinking I’ll get to it “later.” Yup, I’ve missed a few
days (see “merge with traffic”), but it was a conscious decision to do so, not
a struggle over whether I was sabotaging my goal. I named it as merging with
traffic, and I never doubted that when circumstances were appropriate again, I’d
still be on the same path, not having taken an exit ramp.
I suspect there are valuable life
lessons here—not that being healthy isn’t sufficient in its own right. For me,
the message of my successful summer has to do with keeping some perspective
on time and structure, on the interplay between responsibility and ease, and on
the tricky line (at least for me) between clear commitment and obsessive
adherence. Accommodating both sides of those dichotomies/dimensions is no easy
task—whether in a fitness plan or an overall life plan.
I wonder, if I worked on that balance in
all realms of my life, how truly healthy could I be?
© Janis
Bohan, 2010-2015. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to
the post.
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