What’s Your Hurry?

A year or so before my husband John retired in May of 2024, we started watching YouTube retirement videos. Our favorites are Joe Kuhn; Happy on Monday; Holy Schmidt; Erin Talks Money; Retire This Way with $500K; Merit Financial Advisors; Streamline Financial; Think Retirement; Retire Early $500K; James Conole, CFP; Ari Taulieb, CFP; Tae Kim – Financial Tortoise; Retire with Julia; Retirement Transformed, This is Our Retirement, Eric at The PeakFP; and Buzz’s Retirement Garage.

The topics cover the gamut from portfolio management and withdrawal strategies to healthcare costs, Social Security timing, lifestyle adjustments, and the emotional side of leaving work behind—proving that a fulfilling, slower-paced retirement is achievable whether you’re retiring with $500K or several million.

As we get close to the second anniversary of John’s retirement (and my semi-retirement—I’m still writing very part-time), we are getting in the groove of the retirement lifestyle…doing what we want, when we want, and with whom we want.

I would say it’s been an easier transition for John than for me. For the past 45+ years, I’ve been on overdrive, constantly multitasking. From school, to working full-time, to being a stay-at-home mom with our four children for 13 years, to going back into the workforce part-time, to starting a home-based health and wellness business, to creating a new career as a proofreader, copy editor, and ultimately, an author.

No matter what era I was in, there was one common denominator. I was in a hurry. It’s taken close to two years, but it dawned on me recently that I’m finally learning to slow down. To sit still. To do nothing. Just like our friends in the retirement videos have mentioned.

That thought led me to consider all of the day-to-day things I rushed through. Even when we were empty nesters, my days started with a bang and ended in exhaustion. I rushed through getting out of bed, exercising, showering, eating, playing my daily mind-exercise games, phone calls, texts, emails, to-do lists, conducting interviews, being interviewed, outlining, writing, rewriting, cleaning, doing the wash, planning trips, helping my parents, coffee meetups, chatting with people I’d run into here and there, running errands, cooking, cleaning, brushing my teeth, flossing. Heck, I even rushed through my prayers, whether it was the meal prayer or my daily rosary (which I listened to at 1.5 speed while doing the dishes every night).

Car advertisements always talk about going from zero to 60. What about going from 60 to zero? It’s a shock to the system. But you do eventually get used to it. What used to be considered wasting time is now considered living in the moment. It takes a while to acclimate to silence and stillness. The stillness where you can actually hear and ponder your thoughts. It’s crazy how much we’ve slowed our days down. We used to do our whole morning routine, including hydrating, rebounding, strength training, a 40-minute sauna, showering, and dressing before 8:00 a.m. Now, we seldom make appointments before 10:00 a.m. We just don’t want to be rushed anymore.

We can allot as much time as we’d like for any activity we want to pursue in the day, whether it’s reading, biking, or chilling out on our front porch or patio. Generally, we eat a light breakfast and have our main meal in the middle of the day. It seems healthier to consume the bulk of our calories early in the day. And, if we’re eating out, we avoid the crowds. Running errands and having appointments during the middle of the day helps us avoid crowds and the heavier early-morning and late-afternoon traffic. Traveling in the off-season allows for a more relaxed pace as well.

I used to consider being busy and having jam-packed days a badge of accomplishment. Now I consider every day successful, no matter what I did or didn’t do. John and I continue to say how lucky and blessed we are, and we look forward to seeing how the rest of our retirement will unfold. John Lennon said it well for us, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be…”