Achieving Happiness in Your Retirement Years

by Tom Damron
(Plano, Texas)

As we develop and age, we begin to recognize the increasing stresses in our life created by the pressures of our jobs and the way we are living.

We begin to experience exactly how the fear of impending retirement can mold us. When I neared retirement, I asked myself, what do I need to erase about myself to be socially acceptable? I reflect on the numbers of times that I blue-penciled the truth about my life because I feared being less of a person than I needed to be to fit the social strata’s norms. When you find yourself facing these questions, you have entered into what can be an existence crisis. Unfortunately, that is never a friendly recognition.

What would your feelings be if you knew this crisis could be the start to your self-evolution?

What happens when you understand and then recognize that you are not meeting your maximum potential? It is at that point when you can begin to take charge of critical factors that can turn your life around.

Do not continue making excuses for not meeting your conceivable capabilities. Just recognize that you need to self-evolve yourself.

Always be completely self-aware and recognize the numerous choices you must make about your direction. Self-evolving people have the supreme proficiency of exposing those things they want out of their retirement life. The ultimate start of the evolvement process is actually admitting that you have become burdened with unhappiness. That becomes even doubly problematic if you have also taken on the job of fulfilling the direction of someone else’s life.

The moment you are forthright about the reasons you committed to outside arrangements for another person, it will be an amazingly stress-reduction acquittal.

You will instantly recognize that you can restart and pursue an avenue that establishes who you really are as a person, rather than trying to live the expectancies of a spouse, a child or of a social group.

That was my own successful route to self-evolve myself. We are all told too often by too many others such as ministers, relatives, or academics that there is only one right way to live. If we accept what others tell us, it is very dispiriting. The result is that we rob ourselves of the many chances we should be taking to do what we are meant to with our own life. Do what you want. It is your life and you do not have to do anything that others request of you. Keep that foremost in your mind. You are not required to do anything.

In addition, while you are at it, have heart; do not give up on civilization. Resist letting hardships lead you to becoming excessively self-absorbed. There will be times when you may need to assist others through a hardship. Remember that others are fighting a problem like you, so, have heart and offer to assist in however you are able to respond.

You certain can practice selflessness and yet still retain a strong sense of self. You are not required to lose your sense of self in any compassion that you may offer to others.

Self-evolving means seeing the capability not only personally, but seeing it in others, too. Establish strong bonds with people that help you understand that affection in its resilience and its most intense nature comes from legitimacy. There is no need for false fronts or self-esteem.

Self-evolving is all about the trip you take and discards the terminus. It is agreed that you are motivated to be the ideal model of yourself, but ideal does not relate to flawless. When you begin evolving your goal is to reach personal satisfaction and realizing that your trip will never end. When you have evolved and are showing that you are refining yourself continuously, the learning and prospects you earn are endless.

Do not become sidetracked or disappointed by minutiae. Just stay on track as you point to the end goal. When you focus with your mind on the goal then you can move forward with the awesome rewards that you, yourself, will gain from the trip. Keep in mind that you are not racing; you are achieving your fulfillment.

Grab a pen. Sit down. Now write your own final exaltation. What? Yes, as dumb as it sounds it will be the best description of how you want to be remembered. If you do not blow your own horn, who can you depend on to get your story accurate and complete. This part of evolvement allows you to create the map leading to the type of life that you are trying to achieve.

Tell the World about the assets that you possess and why those qualities are important. When you stumble, get out the map, study what you envisioned the person you wrote about doing and then continue the evolvement that will guarantee how you will be remembered.

Your clock is still ticking. What are in your plans for today that will assist in your self-evolvement?

Answer that question and get busy completing it!

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