Bairbre Power
Instead of worrying about money, maybe I should invest in the ‘Second Act’
So there I was on my French sun bed, soaking up the rays, stretching out the legs and marvelling that they are still so agile when the rest of me creaks so badly.
But that’s the sunshine for you. It kick-starts a rejuvenating beat in the souls of the rain-battered Irish. A little Autumn sunshine certainly feeds my soul, like the view from Cannes across to La Napoule and the red Esterel mountains that look mesmirisingly blue across the bay. A sea breeze was diffusing the 28 degree temperatures and the Mediterranean lapped under my mattress on a raised pier.
It was picture perfect. So why could I not switch off? I picked up the new Bill Clinton/James Patterson novel,
The President Is Missing. Maybe I wasn’t far enough into the tale, but I just couldn’t connect with the pages. I looked around me and everyone else was balmed out. Some were sunbathing peacefully, others sipped drinks and were ‘in the moment’. Muggins here was the odd one out.
Even in this blissful, idyllic, setting I was still hot-wired to the life I’d left behind in Dublin, so I did on holidays what I do every day of my working life. I took out my phone and started to scroll. Shame on me.
Now I’m back home again and typing this column wearing fingerless alpaca gloves because it’s so cold. My wrists hurt and I’m belting out the words because I’m beyond furious with myself. Even after all these years, at this stage of my life, I’m still not able to simply go away on holidays and enjoy it from the start.
Is there something wrong with me? Or is it just that it’s increasingly hard to switch off, whatever your age? We used to think of the concept of work/life balance as being just for young people. But with more and more people working hard past retirement age and beyond, it’s an issue for all of us.
But what will that mean when I eventually retire? Now I’m a fair bit off collecting my free bus pass, but that inability to relax in France last week got me thinking about how well equipped am I to be in the non-working mode when I don’t have copy to file? Will I cave in completely in a jobless life?
I was so alarmed by my inability to chill out, I nearly went off and bought a big ball of yarn and huge knitting needles in a shop behind my hotel so I could plain and pearl my way to downtime productivity.
Well that’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one, but then we all live such contradictory lives at times. A week on from the sun-bed disaster, I’ve started thinking long and hard about what I need to do to invest in myself to equip myself better for R&R in the future. And not just holidays.
So many of us will have to work longer because of the worry about the soaring living costs and inadequate pensions. But you know what, it’s really not all about money. Maybe instead of pouting about ‘what might have been’ and staying awake at night worrying about ‘what’s left in the pension pot’, I urgently need to look at the
It’s never too early to equip ourselves for retirement, maybe even turn a passion into an income
bigger picture and address what those ads call ‘Second Act’ lives. I suspect many of us are guilty of not addressing the lifestyle changes ahead. It’s never too early to equip ourselves for retirement — maybe even turn a passion into income.
I’ve been in such a lather over the financials, I failed to properly consider a lifestyle shift. In the airport on the way home, I ordered The Retirement Maze by Rob Pascale, a book about achieving a happy future by changing your thinking now.
There’s also another reason for my renewed awareness about retirement. A very dear friend died last week at 73, three years after retiring.
Richard Lewis had such plans but sadly didn’t get to realise them all. The two of us had the best conversations about everything over book swaps, cannelloni in the Troc and crepes in Rathmines.
Sadly we didn’t get to do our Friday afternoons at the Stella cinema. I thought we had all the time in the world, but thinking back now, did I make the time?
Are we all too desperate to keep on working that we don’t step off the merry-go-round to make time in the week for our retired friends?
I’m sure they all have pearls of wisdom to share that would help us make that transition to retirement — whenever it finally happens.