Six years ago I and my communal accomplices began planning our retirement. At that time we had no idea exactly what it would look like, but we started talking it over, bouncing ideas, and found enough of a common vision to take some concrete steps….Steps that ultimately led to living on Mitchells Island, with some of us retired, some semi-retired, and some still working.
That’s how it goes. Create a vision, make a plan, and then it turns out more or less.
Friends of mine in the U.S. have been financially flattened by the real estate debacle of the last few years. Threats of foreclosures and bankruptcy are what they are dealing with on a day to day basis as their hopes for a comfortable retirement grow dim.
Another friend who I would have considered relatively well-off has had his world turned upside-down this year as payments for legal representation in a court case gradually siphon off his wealth.
And another, recently retired, has been diagnosed with an incurable skin cancer. Instead of looking forward to a new life of agreeable leisure, she now must occupy her time with medical consultations and treatments.
Somehow, thinking about these situations, and others, pushes me to be grateful right now that I can so easily communicate with you, that I have a roof overhead, that I’ve enjoyed a delicious meal this evening, and that I have a loving partner, and a peaceful, natural setting in which to live.
And importantly that I have my yoga practice to go to in the morning – a quiet refuge that lets me organise my thinking around what I have in this moment and appreciate it all the more for its impermanence.