The real retirement is when you don’t sacrifice today for tomorrow.

Naval Ravikant

Bear with me as I attempt to scratch the surface of this topic as I know many readers of this site are retired, but this quote struck me particularly hard today.

The whole dream of planning for retirement typically revolves around three pillars:

Enough money to do what you want
A life without a schedule
Doing nothing

Now, anybody who is retired will laugh at the last two on the list as many retirees are actually busier than ever. Life has become less about the pursuit of that “end date” and more about what creates meaning every day. Sure, all three of those come into play, but not in the way they (or others) might expect.

I’ve had the good fortune of tasting a variety of flavours of life and know what it feels like to have busy days that never feel like work. For instance, of the thousands of hours of time I spent practicing magic, not a single minute felt like a burden. It was fun!

Same goes with the writing.

Colleagues often ask if teaching will be my last career and to be honest, I’m still unsure. Probably, as I seem to like it more every year and I get the joy of being in a profession that encourages you to constantly learn new things.

However, the idea of waiting until we can do ‘nothing’ or ‘live without a schedule’ sinks us into a mindset of just grinding out life. It’s not possible to be happy with that state of mind.

And given the way the world turned on a dime close to one year ago, even the best laid plans can be destroyed in an instant. Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone.

We’re better served if we can learn to ‘retire’ today.

It’s 10:30pm after an exhausting day and I’m propped up in bed, book in hand, winding down for the night. Just as my mind drifts towards the beautiful realm of unconscious bliss, I’m suddenly reminded of that stupid thing I said to someone as a teenager..

The dumb thing I did as a young adult…

The time I did something awful when the right choice was clear…

You know, all the things your brain decides would make you feel horrible, guilty and regretful. It plays out like an out-of-tune symphony that somebody forced you to attend. It’s re-watching all the horrible parts of movies you normally like to skip over (or avoid), except you can’t.

It’s all pelting me like a torrential rainstorm, caught unaware and ill-equipped to deal with it. I can no longer sleep as I lie in bed thinking about how horrible of a human being I am.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just let it go?

It is possible if there is a willingness to forgive.

While it takes an incredible amount of strength to forgive others, it takes a whole lot more to forgive ourselves.

We may never perfect it, but the path there will lead to victories.

And those are the victories that help us sleep at night.

My mother was a master of using silence to coerce a confession.

All she would do is ask a question and then glare. Her stance indicated a position of strength, one that knew she was the one in charge, while her face remained passive–waiting for me to respond.

I would reply with as much muster as I could. It would be honest. Maybe not the whole story, but an honest one.

And that’s when her brilliance shone through because she wouldn’t say a thing afterwards.

Nothing.

It would get horribly uncomfortable and the few moments that passed felt like an eternity. It was enough to break me and verbal diarrhea would spill out. Most days, I’m not even sure if what came out of my mouth made sense.

To be honest, I probably confessed to things I didn’t even do.

For whatever reason, we are afraid of silence and leaving space for it drives us nuts. Our brains have a built-in mechanism that assumes a few moments of silence stretches for much longer and we need to fill that void.

It’s silence that forces us to confront ourselves and we live in a world that does its best to protect us from any self-reflection. We are bombarded with noise in order to uphold the illusion that happiness will come with one more click… one more show… one more purchase…

Even more, times of silence may be a reminder that you can do without most forms of media, especially on a constant basis.

Or, it might even be the time when you realize there’s something you need to say.

But, it’s a powerful force. If you can learn to harness it, not only would you be in the same echelon as my mother, it would lead you to a path of self-reflection and self-mastery.

Is to talk less and listen more.

There’s nothing more entertaining than a traditional family gathering (when we could) and having the entire extended relatives pack into a small space to get riled up.

While endless plates of food get passed along, each with their own unique scent and salivating qualities, beverages are poured and the conversation escalates to levels that put rock concerts to shame.

Then, of course, there’s always that one relative that everyone gets nervous about as they start their path of inebriation. Sure enough, they don’t disappoint and everyone politely smiles while waiting for the moment when they are taken home.

And yet, trying to get a word into any conversation is akin to merging onto a major highway. If there’s a thought percolating in the mind, you rev up and accelerate to beyond highway speeds just to merge safely. If you’re loud enough, there’s a chance you will be heard or carry the conversation in a different direction.

We fear silence in those situations because your chance to get into the conversation is over. Or we use silence to stay out of it.

While enjoyable and memorable, these are rarely the ground-breaking conversations that move society forward. It’s endless shouts of gossip and emotional fervor sparked by the combination of food and beverages. No one leaves that room thinking differently.

And yet, this is the conversation we commit to on social media every day.

Maybe we should find other ways to listen to each other.

The final words were put on the document, ready to be sent off for the weekly assignment.

It’s been a long time since I felt this much flow in my writing, really allowing myself to get out of the way and have fun with it. I was a student within a workshop being guided along. As a teacher, it’s nice to abdicate the teaching responsibility once in a while.

(It might also explain why I spend so much time learning from others)

However, before I could send it, I needed the eye of my most trusted reader: my wife.

“Take a look and let me know, if at any point, you leave the story. If you do, tell me what line it was.”

That editing technique was something I picked up from the brilliance of Kristine Rusch. Drawing your reader into the world and having them live the story is the objective of writing. Everything else is secondary.

“Right here,” she said.

My wife then articulated very clearly what went on in her head and what caused her to leave the work. She also added extra details about unfinished projects around the house since she was already speaking in direct mode. I had to kindly remind her that when a husband says he’ll get something done, he will. You don’t have to keep asking him every six months.

This is the part where you might want to leave the story. The line didn’t land well.

However, how often do we leave the story of our own life?

Are we observers, passively waiting until something jarring comes along to take us from it and see it anew? Or do we absorb ourselves in the stream of every waking moment to experience everything we can?

The scented candle upon the table. A vivid red colour reminiscent of cinnamon hearts candy, which in turn is a reminder of Valentine’s Day. A day to show love… or our understanding of it.

It’s the fragrance of wildflowers, even before they are lit, that brings me through the memory of time. A true time travel experience where I’m transported to the flower shops of my dating life, clumsily selecting pre-picked bouquets in hopes this will be enough to show I’m at least trying. It was the nervousness of carrying the paper-wrapped parcel, crumpling in my hands, just to see the joyful illumination in their eyes. For a moment, a feeling of elation knowing that I was able to brighten a day.

Then I’m off to my teenage years when I would burn incense in my bedroom to overcome the stuffy smell. You know, rather than doing something useful like opening a window or, wait for it, actually cleaning my room.

And then it’s the distant memory, slowly creeping in, of my childhood and the flowers which my mother would place as the centerpiece of the table. Gifts from those who were showing their appreciation for all the work she did, placed in the same green, glass vase she used every time a new bouquet came in. It was the smile on her face as she proudly put them on display that, for some reason, made me happy as well.

Which brings this trip full circle.

And I’m back again, at the table of my home, staring into the scented candles on the table and wondering what journey this will bring my own children to in the reflective years of their life.

Things are never simple and yet, they absolutely are.

Just give me the facts.

That’s all I want. Give it to me, the points I want, then let me be. I’ll extract what I need from the sources and be on my way.

This is how we’ve trained ourselves to read in today’s information overloaded world. Small snippets–scanned, extracted and used out of context, only to wonder why we have such a shallow understanding of things.

And, because we’ve fallen into the trap of this type of reading, we’re training ourselves to write this way as well.

Forget leading the reader.

Forget opening them up to the possibilities and taking them down the garden path as that is a waste of people’s time. We’re all too busy and heaven forbid we should spend longer than seconds digesting. The closest you’re going to get to longform writing that people will read is the same re-hashed copywriting seminar style that exploded on the blogging scene over a decade ago in an effort to lure people into sales funnels.

Highlight your main points, add some filler to meet a word count, and spend all your efforts on the clickbait headline.

Pardon my cadence if I sound bitter, but we are quickly being trained to provide (and look for) dopamine hits rather than content meant to satisfy, challenge, enlighten and consider.

There’s so much good stuff out there, and just like a cherry-picker who must climb the highest branches to get the best of the tree, we must train ourselves to ignore the low-hanging fruit and aim higher as well.

It’s not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Sometimes, you wake up and there’s a quote that just sticks in your head. It sits in there and while you question how it suddenly found itself to the forefront of your mind that day, it concerns you as to why it’s showing up now.

Given the tone of the last few posts and where I’ve been mentally the past few weeks, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

While the extension of this quote is about challenging yourself at least once to see the measure of a human you are (agreed), it also calls to mind that life is going to challenge you… many times.

In those moments, you can see this as something horrible to get through, or as a challenge to grow from.

It’s a matter of asking, how can I be strong in this moment and what is it going to take to feel that way too?

When we first went into lockdown, there wasn’t an obvious marker my body went into crisis mode.

From the surface, it was a matter of holding it together and being strong for those around me, which felt right. My years of training and conferring with others in dealing with difficult situations had prepared me for the moment.

But things felt off…

I couldn’t focus on a book.
I was spending an inordinate amount of time on my phone scrolling social media (despite having no official apps for any of them).
My nights were broken and I was constantly waking up, even when the household was sleeping and still.

My body was trying to tell me something and rather than listen, adjust and deal with it, they were promptly ignored. Hence, other avenues of dealing with stress came to surface and I found my recycling bin overflowing every week with, what felt like, treasure chests for bottle collectors.

This time around, I’ve been able to catch it early.

While I originally thought another lockdown would be “old hat” with enough mental preparation to grind through, my body was speaking to me again. This time, it was heart palpitations.

Recognizing this could get a lot worse, it’s time to step back, re-evaluate my expectations (for myself and others) and ease on up before anything else might happen.

My body knows what my mind sometimes refuses to admit.

And for that reason, I’m letting go of a lot to make sure I still have something to grab when it’s all done.