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What’s that you say? Passion?
Where is you passion?
What is your passion?
Maybe you don’t even remember ever having a passion. It got beat out of you somewhere in your life. And besides, you are a grownup with responsibilities. You can’t be bothered with a passion.
Or can you?
Sold a bill of goods!
My generation got sold a bill of goods. Give up your passion and receive security in exchange. Nobody even tries to make that sell anymore because nobody believes it and nobody can deliver security. But for those of us who dedicated our working lives to that broken promise, it’s hard to see an alternative model. We are so stuck in that thinking that we can’t see the door to freedom. We are like the bird living all its life in a cage. It doesn’t matter if you leave the door open because the bird doesn’t believe in anything outside. We are trapped by our own thinking.
Trapped by conventional thinking.
That old thinking can turn retirement into a repeat of your working career. Instead of freeing your spirit to embrace new activities, I think most people have a very limited view of retirement. They see retirement as a continuation of their working life, only without the work. Retirement means doing the same things they always did-just in different proportions. Sometimes they even get another job to fill in the empty hours. And they let their lives dribble away.
Now, imagine instead an evil plan for retirement. What would that look like?
Not Predictable.
It wouldn’t be a cokie cutter, by the numbers lifestyle. It would be a plan that fans your passion into a raging fire. It would be a plan that only you could love. It would be a plan that would get you out of bed singing every day and put you to sleep at night tired from the effort but satisfied and fullfilled. It couldn’t be captured in a spreadsheet or a mission statement and it will spit in the face of conventional wisdom. It will probably be messy. And it will show you which of the people in your life are friends and which are people you merely spend time with.
Do you dare?
In short it will push into all those areas of your mind that you were afraid to go because you weren’t willing to expose yourself to rejection and ridicule. An evil plan is the road less traveled. You may be the lone ranger but it is better to be the Lone Ranger pursuing your passion than a sheep lost in the herd and not knowing where you might be headed..
Take the chance. Let your passion flow. Put together the evil plan hat will fan your passions. Then come back and share.
