You Are Beyond Compare
Over several columns I have pointed out that in retirement your time and resources are your own, that you don't have limits. And while that is true, it also isn't. We all have limits, but they are different for each of us, and it will be one of the challenges we face to find what they are.
When I talked of being a polymath I stressed that we are free to try anything that might interest us. But what if I want to try being a goldsmith? The cost of the raw materials would, quite honestly, be a limitation that I don't see a way around. At hundreds of dollars per ounce I am not going to experiment with gold in any quantity.
I have to admit, though, that if I could produce this it just might be worth the cost.
I'm also not going to try and learn to pole vault since I don't really want to experiment with falling at my age.
But beyond the obvious, beyond the physically dangerous or financially out-of-reach, there is also the danger of trying to have it all. Trying to do absolutely everything.
Having it all is a pernicious idea that has been with us probably as long as we have been human, and certainly since civilization progressed beyond mere survival. I am sure there were people in the Renaissance who felt they were not as accomplished as they could be; who compared themselves to someone like DaVinci - the ultimate polymath - and found they didn't measure up.
(Pro tip, the folly of comparison is a deep, dark hole filled with self-doubt, isolation, and despair. There will always be someone who is more accomplished, more disciplined, more talented.)
The problem with comparisons is that we never know the whole story; we only see what the person allows us to see. I know people whose public persona is one of amazing competence and accomplishment, who look as though they really do "have it all." These are people who firmly believe in the old adage "Never let 'em see you sweat."
All you will ever see is the vapor trail, not the years of training behind it, or the amount of effort it took to get off the ground.
But I also know them well enough to know that they pick and choose between projects and enthusiasms, they have given up pastimes they enjoyed in order to excel at other things, they have made sacrifices for their accomplishments. I know they have spent days or weeks in a pit of despair when things weren't going right. The difference is that to an outside observer none of this is visible; all you will see from any distance is the overwhelming list of awards and successes.
With the distant lens of nearly 600 years, all we see of DaVinci are his accomplishments-the notebooks with scientific and engineering writings and drawings that were centuries ahead of their time, the breathtaking paintings that have survived. But there is also evidence which some scholars believe support the conclusion that he also suffered from ADHD, and at times considered himself a failure.
If he thought of himself as a failure, how can I possible compare?
This also ties in with the problem of being the smartest guy in the room. We have come to expect competence and more from ourselves, and now we are expecting the same thing as we face our new life in retirement.
We spent decades striving to "have it all" while we held a day job, and we are bringing that expectation into retirement.
Worse, we look around us at other retirees and feel that we aren't measuring up, we aren't achieving what we should be.
(Second pro tip, should is a word which does not belong in your vocabulary. We spent most of our lives doing what we "should" do. The only should in retirement is taking care of yourself: physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, in the ways that really matter.)
A neighbor down the street summers at the beach, while you make do with an above-ground pool and a chaise lounge. Your friend from high school just had her first one-woman show at a gallery in your home town. Distant (or not-so-distant) relatives travel to exotic destinations, sending back pictures of deserted beaches or lush jungles. And you look at these accomplishments and wonder where you failed.
From the outside it looks like some people just kick off their shoes and relax on the white sand beach. But you don't know what choices they made to get there-and maybe you wouldn't make those same choices.
None of this is a failure. It is a choice. Your creativity is strong and deep, and you choose to nurture it, to feed your passion, to immerse yourself in the satisfaction that comes from creating.
Celebrate that choice. You are doing the thing that gives you satisfaction, that makes you happy. A lovingly-decorated cake for your loved one's birthday or a friend's anniversary is an accomplishment of both your creativity and your heart. The memoir you've been waiting to write is a gift to yourself, and to others; so many children and grandchildren only realize when it is too late that they wished they had heard more life stories from their elders.
One of the most cherished pieces I have is a china hutch that has almost no commercial or antique value. It was made by my great-great-grandfather as a wedding gift for his daughter and son-in-law. When my mother inherited it from her grandfather, it was derelict, having been used as a shop cabinet by my great-uncle. Mom rescued it, my dad carefully disassembled it and rebuilt it.
That rebuilding and refinishing likely destroyed any value it had as antique, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that four generations ago a man I never met invested his time and creativity to make that hutch, and decades later my dad invested his time and creativity to salvage it. Dad certainly could have done something else with the time he put into that restoration, but he chose to invest his creativity in making the hutch useful again as a gift for my mother, and now for me. That is a gift beyond compare.
You are unique. Your creativity is your own, a gift you can choose to indulge in whatever makes you happy.
That gift, and you, are beyond compare.