Are you one of those people who can politely be described as a "highly motivated individual"? Workaholic is such a loaded word after all. Do you feel as though there has to be a practical purpose to everything you do? A payoff, if you will?
You don't need to raise your hands, but I suspect many of you out there are feeling a little flash of recognition. You have spent your entire life trying to make every second count, calculating the return on your investment of time. You have, in short, worked toward a goal every day.
You climbed that stairway of accomplishment every single day. Is that what you want to continue doing in retirement?
Now you have time on your hands, perhaps for the first time in your life, and you're excited at the prospect of finally having the time to dive into the creative pursuit that has always been at the bottom of the priority list.
That combination of experience, available time, and enthusiasm can lead you back down the path you just left at the day job. You could easily fall into the familiar pattern and make your creative pursuit a new career.
You could turn your new freedom into another job.
Does this look like where you want to spend your retirement? (And talk about a throwback, that's actually an ashtray next to the desk! When was the last time you saw THAT?)
Wait! I hear you say. Doesn't that contradict some of your other advice? Shouldn't we be taking our craft seriously? Protecting our creative time? Budgeting to pay for materials and classes and research?
Of course you should, and therein is the inherent conundrum of being creative. You must both find joy in your creativity and at the same time take it quite seriously.
Why, after all, do we equate joy with frivolity? Why is creating joy seen as an inherently indulgent and self-centered activity? Indeed, for most of us the impulse to create is to eventually share our creation with others. One of our most human impulses is to offer up what we have created to friends, family, even strangers, in the hope of sharing our story and our vision. We want to invite others into our world.
This picture always makes me smile. Aside from the memories of a wonderful visit to Florida, the sheer audacity of this design amuses me.
But beyond that, the act of creation itself should be a source of joy. We need to allow ourselves to experience the thrill that comes from bringing something into existence from nothing,
What I am advocating here is that you make and protect your creative time in order to do something you want to do, not something you have to do.
Look at it this way. You have worked a job for decades. You hauled yourself out of bed, you dressed a certain way, you commuted a set distance, you performed your tasks, met your deadlines, fulfilled your obligations. You repeated this routine every day for years.
Hey, guess what! You aren't a cog any more. Celebrate, and find joy in your creative life.
For some of you there was a hidden question, a fear of retirement that you may not have shared with anyone. You may not have even acknowledged it to yourself.
How will you fill your time in retirement?
All those days in an office, or classroom, or assembly line. all the hours at a cash register, or on a telephone, or in front of a computer - you knew where your time went. You had a schedule and a plan. What would you do when that regimen disappeared? The temptation may be to replace one job with another. To give yourself a new job.
How about never? Don't turn your creative life into just another job!
Maybe you loved your job, or maybe you didn't. Maybe you thoroughly enjoyed what you did, or maybe you didn't. And maybe you felt a sense of pride and accomplishment at succeeding in your given field. Or not.
But loved or hated or merely tolerated, that life is behind you. What's ahead is whatever you make it, and I honestly believe you shouldn't make it yet another job. Life, as they say (especially when you are retirement age), is too short. Spend your third act doing what you love, what brings you joy.
It's time to look ahead, to find joy in your creative life and the adventures to come.
Don't dilute that joy by making your creative pursuit a "have to." You may want to, you may need to, but don't "have to."
Being retired, having the time for your creative life, is something you have harbored deep in your heart for a long time. Give yourself over to the joy of creating, and give yourself the gift of joy.
Life is too short for anything else.