Category: Retirement

Creativity, I'm Not Done Yet, Moving through the world, participate in your own life!, Retirement, self-talk, Stroke Recovery and BackgroundLeave a comment

A Journey to Fulfillment? Distractions! Caught in a Loop!

rbspecht

A journey to fulfillment? Uh, no. Guess what? Distracted again! Caught in a loop! A Journey to Fulfillment stymied. Do you remember my commitment to setting priorities for all those goals and self-imposed deadlines that I intended to put in place or had been putting in place when last I posted? Caught in a loop!  Distracted again! Speed bumps on a journey to fulfillment! Well, guess what,? I’ve missed most of them because there’s still just too much to do and I have allowed the outside world to get a toe hold in my focus and my imagination. For instance, … Continue reading A Journey to Fulfillment? Distractions! Caught in a Loop!

carotid, Effects of stroke, Moving through the world, Retirement, Stroke Recovery and Background1 Comment

TIAs and Aphasia

rbspecht

TIAs and Aphasia are not to be confused with Tiaras and Asparagus. TIAs and Aphasia are serious indications of something going wrong in your brain. Let me ask a couple of questions to put this in context. Have you ever found yourself short of words?  At a loss for words?  Have you ever had trouble thinking of the right word, or any word that will get your thought across?  And when you couldn’t string together three or four words that you could actually say, not even an “F” bomb, did you panic? That’s aphasia!  What happened?  Were you having a … Continue reading TIAs and Aphasia

Moving through the world, Retirement2 Comments

Hitting the creative wall in retirement

rbspecht

The creator part of me has hit a wall in retirement. It may be more of a speedbump than a wall. I just need to figure out how to move forward. Got any solutions for hitting the creative wall in retirement? I’ve got a lot of ideas, I just can’t get them done. There’s a lot of reasons for it. Its not inertia. I’m overwhelmed and it shows up as procrastination. I have an active retirement. Some activities are are driven by family and friends, and the necessities of a new retirement career. Some activiites are leftovers from my working … Continue reading Hitting the creative wall in retirement

Moving through the world, RetirementLeave a comment

Tyranny of New Year’s Resolutions

rbspecht

Tyranny of New year’s Resolutions It’s the time of the year when we fall into the biggest trap we create for ourselves; the New Year’s Resolution. At the changing of the calendar year we are expected to make New Year’s Resolutions. Oh, the tyranny of the New Year’s Resolution!! The expectations that drive the creation of New Year’s Resolutions started 4000 years ago in ancient Babylon.  At their New Year, which wasn’t January but Spring, the idea of rebirth and growth spurred the population to reaffirm the reign of the king, or crown a new monarch.  They also made promises … Continue reading Tyranny of New Year’s Resolutions

Covid-19, Grandparenting, Moving through the world, participate in your own life!, RetirementLeave a comment

What to do now; Plan, Prepare, Participate

rbspecht

What to do now; We’re caught trying to maintain balance in the crashing waves of pandemic, supply chain disruption, new isolation rules, attempts to restart schools, less than carefully considered imperatives to ‘get back to work’ and natural disasters.  What’s a person to do?  What to do now!? Most of us are straddling two different worlds right now.  There’s our personal life and  stuff, and then there’s the business world which we haven’t completely abandoned or been separated from.  Just because we’re at home, playing at being retired or furloughed doesn’t absolve us from responsibilities to provide advice to our … Continue reading What to do now; Plan, Prepare, Participate

Moving through the world, Retirement, Travel, Watching The WorldLeave a comment

Allow yourself to be seduced by the distractions of holiday travel

rbspecht

Allow yourself to be seduced by the distractions of holiday travel. We often pretend that traveling, taking a holiday or being on vacation will be an opportunity to ‘get stuff done’ while hanging out in the airport transit lounge, enjoying the sun drenched balconies of rented accommodations and lounging on crusty sand beaches, however it rarely works according to plan.  As my own adventure draws to a close I can say that I’ve made a lot of notes, scribbling nearly indecipherable entries in my idea book, but to be truthful my productivity has been pretty much non-existent. I haven’t read … Continue reading Allow yourself to be seduced by the distractions of holiday travel

Move With Purpose, Moving through the world, participate in your own life!, Retirement, Travel, Watching The WorldLeave a comment

The Adventure continues, and we really start to get some traction

rbspecht

We had a fitful sleep going into the Wednesday of our journey, the day we moved out of London and headed north to the Lake District.  Our host’s live-in girlfriend had worked late the night before, arriving back at the mews at 1 AM, and the two of them churned for a time trying to debrief on the day, organize for the next day, quietly padding around the flat like two dogs circling and circling before settling in for the night. We had spent a lovely day the previous day doing our own bit of a churn, setting off mid-morning … Continue reading The Adventure continues, and we really start to get some traction

Moving through the world, participate in your own life!, Retirement, short list, Travel, Watching The World2 Comments

Day One departures

rbspecht

Leaving home can be a stressful affair, fraught with the oh-mi-gawds, and did-I-remembers.  This leaving was no different, especially the part where I stressed out over the weight of our suitcases, thinking forward to the number of times we’d be hauling them through strange airports.  But as a ‘day one‘ goes our journey and adventure was somewhat uneventful and quite comfortable. When we got off the tiny commuter plane from Edmonton to Calgary, we were quite relieved.  Things were going well, just a bit cramped. I, in my usual way, was worried that our big bags wouldn’t make it onto … Continue reading Day One departures