{"id":608,"date":"2019-01-01T05:15:57","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T05:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2021-12-09T23:26:27","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T22:26:27","slug":"the-luxury-of-leisure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"The Luxury of Leisure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s your last day at work after a long and stressful\ncareer on the \u00abhamster wheel of life\u00bb, and just before you leap off home with\nyour old age pension, you are ecstatic. Those who have diligently hijacked you from\nMonday to Friday for the past few decades, are now history. You might just as\nwell go out with a bang because you no longer need any references, or approval\nfrom the boss, with an eye on promotion or a salary increase. You are\nhenceforth the captain of your ship and there’s no one else to blame, only the\nweather. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your next days and weeks are spent floating on air, as\nthe reality of ultimate liberty becomes manifest. Your initial reaction, to\nwear your retirement as a badge of honour, for a life of hard work, doesn’t\nseem to resonate with the folk at the pub as you expected. In fact, you become\naware that there’s a slight air of resentment among the workers of the world,\nstill imprisoned in the web of daily graft. When all the immediate tasks are\ncompleted, you gradually begin to hope for some pressing duty to perform. You\nalso wish there was someone around to appreciate your singular efforts. That costly element of time, that escaped you all your life and forced\nyou into a regime of strict priorities, is suddenly in abundance. But what do\nyou do with it? You realise that happiness is not a matter of how much time you\nhave at your disposal, but how much quality you can integrate into your life for\nthis unknown phase before your shelf-life expires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don’t have the patience for fly fishing, the stamina\nfor trekking or the craving for pottery-throwing or cookery. The local choir\ncan beckon all they like, but it doesn’t entice you, any more than Tai Chi for\nseniors. The notion of writing your memoirs is similarly vacuous, since upon\nreflection, the contents of your life seem about as rousing as a page from the\ntelephone directory. You ruminate on learning Spanish or chess, but they are\nsimilarly disqualified. The reality is that after very considerable deliberation,\nyou need to find some work before you mutate into a stiff, stagnant, fossil,\nripe for the nursing home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, on a sleepless night with a full moon, in a magical moment of illumination, you find your new calling. You will become the official local dog-walker and be the canine carer for pooches of stressed out workers. You have all day, plenty of little friends around you, hours to pick up poop and chat to those who won’t answer back. In fact, it may become so lucrative, you will wonder why you ever went “out to work”. The next morning, you ignore the inner alarm call, lay back on your puffed-up pillow, turn on your Mozart and bask in the luxurious sanctuary of pure joy. No appointments, no demands, – the day is yours. The sun is shining and little bubbles of pure elation are dancing around inside you in an enchanting way. All is well in your world and you have never felt so content or appreciative. Perhaps you will snatch your bike and go fishing after all – then you can sing in your bath afterwards, grill the fish and play patience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, Carpe Diem – bring it on!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: Snapwire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s your last day at work after a long and stressful career on the \u00abhamster wheel of life\u00bb, and just before you leap off home with your old age pension, you are ecstatic. Those who have diligently hijacked you from Monday to Friday for the past few decades, are now history. You might just as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[93,94],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-topics","category-idiosyncracies","tag-retirement","tag-the-luxury-of-leisure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humble-thoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}