After your retirement begins, and the initial “fun things” you wanted to do have worn off, what will you do the rest of your Senior Years that will be meaningful to either yourself, others, or both.
Many of us will just retire, do those fun things for a while and then get bored, listless, lethargic. Some of us will ask ourselves “is that all” while other will ask “what next”. So many say “is that all” and start the serious physical deterioration that comes with age. They will become the stereotypical Senior and start digging that deep pit to despair and lack of hope for an Active future, or just wallow in boredom while their body starts into a premature decline.
Others will have something in the back of their mind that they have wanted to do but never got around to, and leave a legacy behind them that is on a different path from the one on which they spent the majority of their productive years.
A legacy project is something you do or create that you will leave behind you, and that you do to fulfill some sort of PURPOSE for yourself and gives you a reason for living alive.
You may have wanted to take up golf. You may have wanted to “save the world from (you pick it).” “I’ll do (again you pick it) when I retire and stay active and do things.”
You may have wanted to take up painting or write a family history. You may want to do something just for yourself, something as diverse as learning to skydive or learning a new skill and putting it to use.
Sure, you may have wanted to do it, but when the opportunity presents itself, most people don’t. They give themselves excuses like “I’m too old now”, or “I can’t, it’s too late in life to do it”, or something similar.
Then the body starts wasting away and the mind starts deteriorating and the project that you had your heart set on, dies with your attitude and age.
Take a moment while you’re reading this and ask yourself: “What was that ONE THING that I really wanted to do when I retired but never got around to it?” It doesn’t have to be something that saves Humanity. It doesn’t even have to be anything big. It just has to be something that YOU wanted to do that you never did.
My own legacy project is still a work in progress. I planned for The Come Alive Project to be a vehicle to get a message of Health, Fitness, Personal Energy and Active Participation in Life, to active Senior men and woman, and to get that message out through speaking, writing, blogging, and workshops. My original plans were to create a Senior Lifestyle Retreat Center and provide seminars, classes and retreats for active seniors who genuinely wanted to discover the Fountain of Youth within them, and were willing to take the time and effort to learn and participate.
I have been doing the blogging for over a decade. I have done a number of talks and workshops but not on the scale that I originally planned. Instead of having a separate retreat center, I did the workshops in churches and rented facilities. I started doing all that at age 70 and it took a major lifestyle change to get in a position to where it was even feasible for me to start.
I will continue to do workshops as we move beyond the COVID “thing” and get away from ZOOM and other artificial environments. I have done talks to groups on ZOOM and I have not adapted particularly well to that format. I will continue to do ZOOM presentations when asked.
Not everyone will want to create a Legacy Project but it can add some pizazz and PURPOSE to otherwise non-eventful, even boring, senior years. And don’t forget, having a PURPOSE in life is a major marker of Longevity and Happy Aging. Give it a shot. You might find it will help you discover your own Fountain of Youth.
Thank you for reading.