How Can My Past Absolutely Brighten My Retirement Days, Can You Benefit?

Regrets, yes I’ve have some. Some needle me to this day. Let’s deal with them.

Here’s the problem: It’s our past. We didn’t accomplish the thing our youthful self thought important. And it haunts us. Now, much older, we hold regrets. Maybe you don’t, but most of us carry them. If we allow, it will make us a sorry bunch. I don’t know about you, but there’s enough stuff to be sorry about without our past being one of them. Come along with me. I do not have all the answers for sure, but I do know some.

Here goes

My regrets fit into two categories.

1. What I did.

2. What I did not do.

Oh my, why did I say or do those things?

I would venture to say, most of us retirees made stupid mistakes in our past. A few of those misfortunes are taking up house in our minds. They haunt us through our dark and lonely nights. Usually, we can do nothing to rectify those nagging mishaps. The people we offended are dead and have gone to their eternal reward. Those living would not remember what we did to hurt them.

Opportunities given, opportunities not taken

Then there are the opportunities I passed on taking. Why I left them to slip through my hands, I can’t comprehend to this day.

The missed opportunities I should have taken. Now, in my late seventies, my time to act was in the years of robust health and sharp intellect. What can I do now? I don’t want to admit, my cognitive skills have diminished. The advancing years have taken a toll on me [us]; I’m not the person I once was, and I know it. Guess what? You know you aren’t the same at sixty-eight as you were at forty-eight, right?

I’m sure what I described is not valid for everyone. Some of you old-timers are running marathons. Good for you. Not me. I walk slow and ruminate over my past. Some of us still deal with problems, that’s normal, what we do with them matters.

The shoulda, the coulda, and the woulda trio performs their heart-throbbing songs in our heads. But the past has drained like water through a sieve, to be captured no more.

Our decisions to do or not to do are the most common of all regrets people carry into old age. Read the six most common regrets people have here.

So what’s an old-timer to do?

Well, I’ve laid out the problem some of us retirees deal with. Are we fixated on regrets to our own detriment? We have more time to think about our past, don’t we?

For me, I’ve released most of my regrets of the past. I realized there remains no way to go back. Time travel is for movies, not real life. So, the impossible is… impossible.

Time moves in one direction, memory in another — William Gibson

The few regrets haunting me? I have stashed them in a folder in my memory. This is my folder’s name.

Knowledge & Wisdom.

At seventy-nine years old, my experiences have given me a wealth of knowledge.

You have this knowledge stashed in your memory to brighten your remaining days, too.

At our age, we now have the wisdom to put our knowledge to good use.

When I wrote earlier that I walk slow and think about my past, I must change the word ruminate to rejoice. Yes, I rejoice over the wealth of knowledge and wisdom the good Lord has given me.

A quick recap

We have two choices in using our past, even with all the stumbles we made, to brighten these retirement days:

1. Let the past be past-tense. Some regrets are impossible to correct. Release this grip on the past.

2. Use the knowledge and wisdom older age gives us to shine in our relationships. Enjoy each day as a gift.

Knowing how to handle past regrets have absolutely changed the way I do my retirement.

How about you? I’d love to know what keeps you happy even though things from the past haunt you.

Thanks for reading to the end; doesn’t always happen, glad when it does.

Richard

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