Opportunities vs Challenges in retirement 1

 Caree Risover charts her retirement through planning to implementation and enjoyment. Her retirement blog shares her quest for meaning in retired life with details of her thoughts, creativity, travel and even her vegetable plot. I enjoy reading her blog and recommend it to you. In a recent post, she started with the following statement.

What I really love about retirement are the opportunities to take up so many new challenges.

What a great idea and well phrased. I was talking to a young person the other day and I said, do you know the old saying “Opportunity only knocks once.” He said yes, and I said, it is not true, opportunity knocks all the time, but because we only hear it once or twice and, in my experience, few act on the opportunities that present themselves.

In my blog, I have outlined some of these struggles, some that I have had to work through, such as struggling to “switch off” from work mode and relax.

Over the years I have talked to people who when retired, felt anxious because they had more time on their hands, but less money to spend. I have also talked to those who have found it difficult to fill the extra hours with meaningful activities.

The biggest issue that many retirees especially men had was the loss of identity, they were no longer a doctor, teachers, designers, salespersons, electricians, or drivers, so they had no idea who they were or would become.

Whatever challenges you face as you prepare for this new chapter in life, the following tips given in the next few blogs, I hope will help you ease the transition, reduce stress and anxiety, and find new meaning and purpose in life.

Focus on the opportunities of retirement not the challenges of retirement, is the message that those of us who have faced the challenges have for those who are about to face them.