- Image by __Olga__ via Flickr
The rules have changed. You are in control!
In retirement, nothing forces you to live anywhere you don’t want to be. If you stay where you were, then either you like where your live or you are just too lazy to do something about it. Until retirement there was always an excuse. You had to be close to your job. You wanted to live where there were good schools. The odds are good that your decision about where to live had very little to do with your passions or pleasures. It was a pragmatic decision which tried to optimize the priorities in your life. Usually job and family trump passion so now that your family is grown and you are retired from you job, you are living someplace you don’t actually like or doesn’t fit the life you want in retirement. Where you are living may be keeping you from living the retired life you want and deserve. How does your two-story, suburban house relate to your passion to comb the beaches for driftwood and paint watercolor sketches? How does a small town lifestyle relate to your passion to be part of an intense urban area with lots of street life and cultural events? Don’t be tied to the past. Have you just accepted that where you are is where you were meant to be or do you ask yourself how it happened that you seem trapped in an irrelevant lifestyle? Stop and ask yourself if your present life is where you want to be?
You have a choice.
In retirement you don’t have any geographic constraints – unless you choose them. You can move where you want. You can cut your anchors if you decide that they no longer represent your life. Sell the family house (or rent it) and follow your heart. Move to the beach or the city. Live abroad. Don’t focus on the obstacles because that will only give you an excuse to delay and stagnate. Pick someplace that excites you and ask how you can make not seeking approval from others. People will criticize you and say you are irresponsible. Don’t buy it. These are people who are still in a cage, trapped by old decisions. Take each criticism as a sign that you are right and keep on going.
Do it now!
Don’t dither. Don’t hesitate. You don’t have time to waste. Stop living your ‘settle for’ life by leaving your ‘settle fo’r environment. Live your outrageous retirement where you want to be.
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