Many years ago when I was single and broke, I discovered the world of torrenting. Now you may have your opinions on this, and you’re entitled to them, but back then it was the wild west of the internet still, and if you knew how to get things like movies, the world was your oyster.
After quite a bit of setup, I’d installed all of the apps, protections, and connections that I would need to “safely” download a movie and stream it through my Xbox 360 to my TV. It was a marvel of technology that made me sit back and think about how far we’d come in such a short span of time. I’d gone from watching pictures download one line at a time over dial up AOL in high school, to downloading full feature length movies and streaming them across my house to a TV in just five short years.
With this godlike power in front of me I loaded up a torrent search engine and then stared blankly at the screen. With literally limitless options to choose from, I couldn’t decide which should be the first movie I downloaded. So I did the most logical thing I could think of; I downloaded Big Trouble in Little China.
What really happened was that I panicked. I had no idea what to do with the power I wielded. I could have chosen virtually any movie ever made or a whole slew of new movie bootlegs, and instead I just picked the first movie that came to mind. All of my focus had gone into the planning of how to get the movies, but I’d forgotten to think about what movies I was planning to get.
So why am I writing about this today?
Today is the first day of school. For the first time in ten years I find myself home alone with my wife at work and all three of my children in full time school. For the first time in ten years I can focus on whatever I want, completely uninterrupted, and will be able to do this nearly every weekday until next summer. I can leave if I need to leave, shower when I need to shower, work out for a second time, clean the pool, record the YouTube videos I’ve been putting off, write for this blog…even focus on my full time job!
Yet, much like the movie situation, I find myself sitting at my desk doing exactly what I would have done any other day of the year with my kids around. I don’t even need to sit at this desk in this office. I could be upstairs in the kitchen watching it rain, or outside at the pool bar enjoying the last days of summer. But honestly, I had been so focused on the idea that I would have the time that I forgot to plan what I was going to do with the time.
That brings me neatly along to connecting this to the idea of retirement. I know people who have retired from police or military careers already. All of them have enjoyed about a month of freedom before going stir crazy and taking on new jobs. They all knew what they were retiring from and happily hung it up, only to realize they didn’t have much of a plan about what they were retiring to.
Whether it’s by choice or my company sending me on my way, I have some idea about what I’d like to do with my time if I’m no longer working full time. However today just taught me that I need a much clearer picture of what to do should I find myself with limited responsibilities and limitless options. Clearly history has shown that I may just panic and jump at the first thing that comes to mind.
Come to think of it, I may just watch Big Trouble in Little China today.
Freed by 50 