Variety is the Spice of Life

I knew it had been a while since my last blog post, I just hadn’t realised how long. But that kind of fits in well with my topic this time – how I’m dealing with the fact that I have so many things to do and not enough time!

One of the things I was really looking forward to in retirement was having the time to spend doing all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t because I didn’t have enough time. I was spending all that time going to work. I had so many ideas, things I wanted to try, things I wanted to get better at. It was exciting to think I could do them – at last!


One interest - doing cross-stitch

Another interest - making cards

But, and of course there is a but, it hasn’t worked out that way. Yes, I have way more time to do all those things, but I still don’t have enough time. Maybe I have too many ideas, too many things I want to try, too many things I want to get better at. Maybe I should cut things from the list. But which should I cut?

laying out for the coffee table I
started over a year ago

Maybe I should focus on just a few things, and give them more time. Then I could do them “properly”. I’ve heard the phrase that it takes “10,000 hours of practice to perfect a skill”, and the thought of that is pretty scary. 10,000 hours is an awful lot of practice. That’s a full time job for more than 6 years! And that’s just for one thing.  I gave up work so I could spend time on more things, not less.

Getting back to my point, though, is it a problem that I have so many things I want to do? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming, and it’s easier to do none of them than to decide which one to do. Sometimes I think that not spending lots of time on one thing, and flitting between many projects, is a bad thing.


I’ve envied people who have a passion in life. I don’t have one passion. I have many interests! As a result, I won’t ever be able to spend enough time on any of them to be great at them. Instead, I spend as much time on them as makes me happy. I will try not to be too critical of my efforts, though. I will try to remember that I don’t need to be perfect at the skills – good enough will do.

working on another interest - the vegie patch
(yes, it was cold)

In my work life, I did OK by knowing a little about a lot of things. And I enjoyed the kind of work I did because I got to talk to lots of different people, and find out how many different people did their jobs. That was hugely interesting to me. And people kept paying me to do it! So maybe being easily bored, and liking variety, aren’t faults – that’s just the way I am.


So mostly, no, I don’t think having so many things that interest me is a problem. I just can’t do them all now. I will have to live to about 150 to get them all done, though. At least I know now that the answer to the question people asked me when I retired – “Won’t you get bored?” – is No.

another interest - making mosaics

yet another interest - making bags

Actually, thinking about it, that phrase about “10,000 hours” may well be one that, through repetition, has gone from a catchy phrase someone thought up, to something people think is true. Don’t believe everything you hear!



Let's Get Physical - How

A while ago I wrote about Why being physically prepared for retirement was important. I think I might have forgotten a major point, and of course it was my Mum who reminded me of it. Not that she said “I think you’ve forgotten the most important point”, but she DID say something that struck a chord with me.

some pretty flowers from my old neighbourhood

Ever since my Dad died a few years ago, Mum has been suffering terribly from the grief and depression. It has got to the point where she is seriously worried about herself, which in turn only makes it all worse. Then a short time ago, something happened that made her think that all was not lost. She went for a walk.

Yep, that’s all. Even though she didn’t feel like it, she still went out. And instead of going for a short walk, she went so far that she was worried she wouldn’t make it home! It was getting dark, and she started to get a bit worried, so she upped the pace, and instead of just wandering along, she got the old heart going. When she got home, she felt great! Maybe she felt that way because she was so relieved to make it back safely. But I think it was more than that.

Couch Potato!

It is well documented that exercise is a very effective method of dealing with depression. If you can just get yourself off the lounge and out into the big wide world, it does a heap of good. Just ask my Mum! So that is a very important point for Why we need to be physically prepared – it can help combat the mental challenges that retirement can bring.

What happened with Mum also shows one of the Hows of being physically prepared. Walking around the neighbourhood is easy, cheap, and educational – one time when I was walking around my neighbourhood, I encountered a horse grazing in the front yard of a house a couple of streets from me, and this was the inner west of Sydney!

I’ve found walking to be the best way for me to get back into exercising when I’ve been a couch potato for too long. It’s something that can be incorporated into my life without actually calling it exercise. Instead of driving to the fruit and vegie shop, I’d walk. Instead of driving to my appointments, I’d walk. I mean, I wasn’t that busy that I didn’t have the time! All I had to do was plan for the extra time it would take me to walk there and back. There I go again – Planning!!!

I walked HEAPS one day - but I was out there
to take photos, so didn't think of it as
EXERCISE

Other ways to get physical – who else gets home from doing the grocery shopping and tries to unload the bags from the car into the house in as few trips as humanly possible? I have been known to carry 4 shopping bags on each arm, and still manage to open the front door to get into the house, lock the car using the remote, and stagger down the hall to the kitchen. But what’s so important about doing the least number of trips possible? Who was I competing with? Or maybe I was doing strength training?

Basically, I could increase the amount of exercise I got by being sensible and making as many trips as necessary to get the groceries into the house.

So, I found I was more likely to do the exercise if I didn’t think of it as exercise. Weird.

That was Step 1 in the plan for How I was to get physical.

Can't Help Myself, Bad Habits

Habits are so hard to break, aren’t they? Just think about it. Usually these habits are developed over many years, if not decades. So to think it can be changed, just like that, is a bit unrealistic. It takes work, and persistence, not giving up, forgiveness for slipping back into that habit (and that WILL happen), and eventually, a new habit will take its place.

Yep, that’s right, one habit replaced with another! Mind you, not all habits are bad. Habits do get a bad rap, but there are many habits that make our lives easier, or better even.

my apple tree harvest this year
thanks to good teeth, I can eat them!

Take cleaning your teeth – that’s a good habit. It’s one that is instilled in us from a very early age. And for that, I’m grateful. It means that at the ripe old age of 52, I only have a couple of fillings, and my visits to the dentist are mostly just checkups. I don’t think I ever considered visits to the dentist as traumatic, until I had a nasty experience when I was in my thirties, but that was the dentist’s fault, not my teeth.

And for the fact that I have fairly good teeth, I thank the habit of cleaning them that my mother drilled into me. BUT (and of course there is a BUT), my teeth could be better, if I flossed. That was a habit that I never got in to. Maybe flossing wasn’t a concept back in the 1960’s. So I don’t do it now. I’ve tried to get into the habit, but it’s been very difficult.

 

stewed apples, dried apples, and still
a box full of apples!

Habits are physical things – things we do – but I think they are also mental things – things we think (or not think). We think about ourselves and others in particular ways, because that is the habit we have gotten into.

I don’t think of myself as “sporty”, because one of my sisters was the “sporty” one. I always played sport, but I never thought I was good enough. As a result, in my adult life, I haven’t put much of an emphasis on exercise – why do it if I’m never going to be good enough?  I kept up the exercise, until I started getting older and it took longer to recover, and injuries started to take their toll. But exercise is such an important thing, even more so as I get older. Yep, here’s that idea of being in good physical condition again!



my Saturday morning exercise class - and yes,
we are actually working out

Since I knew I had to do something to keep myself physically active (no more running up the stairs at the train station, to catch the train to work), I had to break that habit of thinking that there was no point in doing it if I wasn’t going to be good at it. It was stopping me from enjoying exercise, and stopping me from changing my physical bad habits.

I still don’t think of myself as “sporty”. But I have (mostly) broken that habit of thinking that I have to be good at it in order to enjoy it. I’ve found that it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, or how good I am at it, if the activity involves the things I enjoy (the people I’m doing it with are good fun, it is varied so I don’t get bored, it gets me outside), then I’m more likely to do that activity regularly – it becomes a habit!

So, I think I’ve pretty much developed the habit of thinking of myself as someone who exercises. As a result, I definitely have a habit of going to my exercise class on Saturday mornings. I still have the habit of cleaning my teeth. The habit of flossing, though, that’s still a work in progress!

Let's Get Physical - Why?

That mental picture of Olivia Newton-John in workout gear is not going away, is it! The younger generations may not have that problem, but anyone who was around in the 80’s will know what I’m talking about.

The kind of “getting physical” Olivia sings about isn’t really the message today, unless, of course, you want it to be! I’m talking about getting myself into good physical condition.

the walk we took my mother on for
her 80th birthday!

I’m not talking about being in seriously good condition like the trainers on the Biggest Loser. I don’t think it’s possible for me to be like those trainers. I just want to be healthy.

Why do I want this? I want to be well enough that I can enjoy doing the things I enjoy – the things I want to do in my Joyful Retirement. That doesn’t mean I have to be able to run a marathon, or do 100 push-ups, or a pull-up (pull-ups are seriously impossible for me to do!), or be a perfect size X (insert desired dress size here), or never eat chocolate again.

When planning for retirement, we put together a list of the things we wanted to do – travel, do bushwalks, take up hobbies (Les wants to start doing lawn bowls, apparently it isn’t just old people who play these days), build a vegie garden, catch up with friends.

the ship we did a harbour cruise on

Imagine how hard it would be to travel if I was way overweight and couldn’t fit comfortably in the plane seat. Or I couldn’t climb to the top of the lookout to see the whales swimming by. Or I couldn’t go on a harbour cruise because my balance was bad and I risked falling over and breaking a bone.

Imagine how hard it would be to play lawn bowls if you can’t bend down (actually, they have special sticks you can buy that mean you can pick up the bowls without having to bend over!).

Imagine how limiting it would be if the bushwalks we went on had to be less than 15-30 minutes because I couldn’t walk further than that without getting exhausted.

What this means, though, is I have to put in some effort to maintain a healthy body. I like the comparison with a car – we all try to put the right fuel into it, service it regularly, give it a wash every now and then so it looks pretty, and it rewards us with working when we need to use it, and for a good number of years if we look after it well.

I also like the car comparison because there are so many cars out there – ranging from the slick little MG, to the hulking great Hummers. I drive a silver Toyota Corolla – how much more average can you get! So, I can’t expect to get a physical condition like an MG when I’m actually a Corolla.

some flowers I saw on one of my walks around
the neighbourhood

So, what would happen if I didn’t look after myself? Well, it is no surprise that I’m getting older, and let me tell you that things start going wrong when that happens – things that you have very little control over. I never had an issue with high cholesterol until I turned 50, then WHAM! I hadn’t changed my diet, so all I can assume is that it is just one of those things that I have to live with.

But there are things that I can delay – like muscle degeneration, changes to bone density – or improve – like heart health, fitness level, balance. And if I don’t do anything about these things, how will I be able to enjoy my life?

That’s the Why – or my motivation for trying to be in good physical condition. All I had to do then was develop a plan for how I was going to do it – aah, yes, planning, and Be Prepared!

Midweek Escapades

Sydney is a very busy place. Nothing is done slowly. Everyone is in a rush. Very few people take the time to stop and smell the roses.



the view looking south from somewhere on the Coogee to Bondi walk

So many times when we were working, we would head off on the weekend for a walk somewhere, only to find that half of Sydney had the same idea. That resulted in a whole heap of stress for me – having to negotiate the crowds even to find a parking space, then to get to where we wanted to go, was like a kind of hell.

But now that we don’t go to work anymore, we aren’t limited to weekends when we want to get out and about. We can wake up on a Thursday, for example, see that the weather is glorious, and decide that yes, today is a great day to go for a walk along the coast somewhere. And we don’t have to take a sickie to do it!

And that is exactly what we did on Thursday this week. Well, we didn’t just wake up and decide right then, because we had been thinking about it since last week, but the fact that the weather was good meant that we could actually go.

the wonderful Sydney traffic

 

When we move to the country, I will miss being able to easily get to the coast to go for a walk. But I definitely won’t miss the Sydney traffic. I don’t think there is any such thing as peak hour anymore – the traffic is bad no matter what time of day. But, once we got to Coogee (the starting point of our walk), we easily found a parking spot right at the start of the walking path. On a weekend, we would probably have had to park a couple of suburbs away!

certainly not crowded here!

The walk we did goes from Coogee to Bondi, a distance of approximately 6km. It is a very popular walk. Many people also use it as a running route. On the weekends, there is a constant push and shove to keep moving. Midweek is a completely different story. There are certainly people around, but I never felt crowded.

And when we got to Bondi, just on lunch time, we had our pick of cafes where we could have a restorative coffee. In fact, we had our pick of tables in our pick of cafes. Bliss!

The walk back to Coogee (yes, another 6km) was also very pleasant. I tend to give Sydney a hard time because I really don’t like living in it, but it really is a beautiful city. There are many walks that can be done in all parts. There are national parks right in the city, and within an easy drive of the city. The harbour is amazing. There is always something on, or something to do.

If you are retired, don’t sit at home all the time. Take the opportunity to get out and about. Midweek escapades are a great way to do that. You can see all those things you’ve always wanted to see, do those things you’ve always wanted to do, and some that you haven’t, and not have to compete with hordes of other people.

Take the time to stop and smell the roses.

Permission to Do Nothing

Although being retired doesn’t mean, to me at least, sitting around doing not very much, it is OK to do pretty much exactly that, every now and then.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been racked with guilt whenever I’ve spent a day not being “productive”. But my personality traits mean that every now and then, I need to have some time out. So, I take those time outs, and then afterwards, feel incredibly guilty about it. I mean, really, I should have been cleaning the house because it is a pig-sty, but instead I sat around and read a book for the day. Or I should have been organising the next girly get-together because we haven’t seen each other for months, but instead I watched a rom-com movie.

a "non-worthy" pursuit - baking melting moments!

All the things that I did I put into one of two categories – worthy pursuits and non-worthy pursuits. Things like reading a book, or watching a movie, or doing a crossword, or making cards (ie all the things I actually enjoy doing) fell into the non-worthy category, or course! And if I did any of the non-worthy pursuits when a worthy pursuit was sitting there waiting to be done, I felt guilty about it.

But, not anymore!! Well, most of the time, anyway. It has taken me a LONG time to realise that there will NEVER be a time when there isn’t a worthy pursuit waiting to be done. And if I don’t do those non-worthy pursuits until there are no more worthy pursuits, I’ll never have any fun!

So, that whole way of thinking has to go out the window. No more “worthy” and “non-worthy”. Now there is “time-constrained” and “non-time-constrained”. By that I mean, things that have a deadline, and those that don’t. That has freed me up to be able to make more choices about how I spend my day, and not feel any guilt about what my choices are.

trashy magazines, courtesy of the doctor's surgery!

Today was one of those days where the planned things just didn’t happen. Bad weather meant my exercise class (Use It or Lose It, a wonderful class lead by Denise and Fred from Wellbeing Fitness) was called off (we do our class outside at Bicentennial Park). And the idea of heading out to visit a friend in hospital was just not going to happen. So, instead of tidying up the spare room, or mopping the floors, or doing the mending, I read a book and some trashy magazines. I pretty much only got off the lounge to make a coffee. Loved it!

The way I see it now, I only have one chance at this life of mine, so I want to enjoy it. And if that means doing pretty much nothing sometimes, then that is exactly what I’ll do. Those other, “worthy” pursuits, I’ll get to them tomorrow J.