Once you retire, tasks that once seemed so important lose their urgency
One of the best things about retirement is the ease in which movement from one year to the next takes place. I get in no hurry to do anything, because it’s all optional.
Last night, I stayed up until 4 a.m. watching Netflix movies because of my clear schedule this week. The night before I stayed up until 6 a.m. Of course, that left me sleeping during the day, but it mattered not. Most everything would wait until I got around to it.
I used my car for the first time in 2015 almost a full week into the New Year because I realized that when I went to the grocery store on New Year’s Eve, I forgot to buy dog food. With two ravenous mouths to feed every morning, I conceded it was time to hit the road again.
Mickey the Schnauzer and Lucky the Jackshund get really testy when breakfast doesn’t hit the floor within 10 minutes of our getting out of bed, so I decided not to dally any longer. I had just emptied every morsel out of the dog food bag to fill their bellies.
After spending two days in my pajamas, I finally hit the shower and got dressed. On the way across Cedar Creek Lake to Walmart, it occurred to me I no longer drove quite as fast as I did when I worked full-time. The slower speed gave me time to gaze at the white pelicans floating in the bay next to the bridge and to gauge the level of the lake after the recent rains.
As I drove, I also pondered my failure to make any New Year’s resolutions this year. A column on the front page of The Monitor, Cedar Creek Lake’s newspaper, praised the value of the practice and urged everyone to take part in changing their lives forever. The editor, Pearl Cantrell, based her argument on Resolved: 13 Resolutions for Life, a self-help book by Orrin Woodward, a motivational speaker and New York Times best-selling author who promises to give readers a plan to “live the life you’ve always wanted.”
Woodward maintains in his book that resolutions should be geared toward changing one’s self from the inside out to be effective. External changes do not reprogram a person.
I reviewed some of my resolutions in previous years that I, naturally, failed to ever accomplish. Almost every year I’ve vowed to exercise more and eat and drink less so I would look better. I’ve rarely gotten out of the gate with that one because I was always still eating and drinking well into the early hours of New Year’s morning.
I also routinely failed to clean my house and wash my car on a regular basis. I always slipped back into the habit of waiting until the approach of a crisis, such as learning someone planned to visit me from out of town. I always started the New Year with a clean house and fresh laundry because my mother instilled that tradition in me, but I never caught on to her habit of keeping things in order all year long.
No doubt I’d had other resolutions I failed to keep over the years, but those seemed to be the most glaring examples.
Suddenly, I realized what Woodward meant by saying change must occur from the inside out. I could never keep those resolutions because I’m a lazy procrastinator. Until I corrected that problem, I’d never be able to live the life I’ve always wanted.
I zipped through Walmart and headed home with a giant bag of Purina One SmartBlend in the trunk of my car. I vowed to buy another bag before that one ran out.
I decided it was not too late for me to make a New Year’s resolution, and I made plans to order Woodward’s book from Amazon. By golly, I could change my life forever. I envisioned how much better life would be after I read that book.
Then I realized, I was driving fast again. I was in a hurry to get home, but the dogs had already been fed. I was getting carried away. That couldn’t be good.
It will take a week or so for the book to arrive after I order it. Until it gets here, I won’t fret. Life will go on as normal, but as soon as that book arrives I’m getting down to business. I will immediately start reading it.
You see, I enjoy reading in the afternoon while lying on the living room sofa with the sun filtering through the blinds. It often makes me sleepy so I take a little nap. The book will still be there when I awake.
David Webb is a veteran journalist with more than three decades of experience, including a stint as a staff reporter for Dallas Voice. He now lives on Cedar Creek Lake and writes for publications nationwide.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 9, 2015.
