I have discovered another nice blog about retirement. It is http://retiredsyd.typepad.com The blog is called Retired Syd and is by a young lady (at least by my standards) who choose to retire in her 40s. She was an accountant in her working years. I didn’t realize accounting paid so much that you can retire with less than twenty years in the business! Maybe that fact would help one endure the boredom of all the number crunching (ha). Anyway, Syd is now on my regular view list. She definitely has a way with words. More power to her. I retired more than ten years ago while I was in my early fifties so I guess I didn’t wait much longer than she did.

In one of her recent posts (I can’t seem to find it right now) she cited a statistic that about 60% of those entering retirement thought they had mostly accomplished what they set out to do in their work life. Less than 25% thought they missed what they set out to do. After reviewing that post I asked myself the same question. Did I accomplish what I wanted during my working years?

Forty one years ago when I started in the corporate world I really don’t think I had much of a plan of accomplishments. It seemed more of a day-to-day thing to me. I didn’t say things like “I will do this for eight years and then I will do that”. I have always been a planner but I guess it was always about the short term stuff. So, to answer the question that Syd reported, no I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do as I didn’t set out to do anything. I know today kids seem to have so many more possibilities for their lives than I did. I just didn’t see that when I was supposed to be planning my life in the 1960s.  Looking back I know now there were several opportunities that I would have liked to have had but that is called “Monday morning quarterbacking”.Don’t get me wrong I did accomplish some pretty significant things in my life and I am proud of them but none of them were planned before I started.

Here I am starting my second decade in retirement from the corporate world and the same thing seems to be happening.  I have not had a long term goal for my retirement. Instead it has been a day-to-day thing. But that is not bad in and of itself. I am not just drifting through life but it seems I do just let it come at me and then I make my choices. In the Bible Jesus tells us to not be focused on the past or to worry about the future because God will take care of that. Instead he wants us to live in the day.  That is not such a bad way to do things, at least not in my mind.  It is the choices we make day-to-day that really determine who we are and what impact we have on the world.

And the journey goes on…