Tag Archives: plans

Thinking about Retirement

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Tonight I’m going to the Principal’s retirement dinner. A good friend has asked me to do his introduction before he does his retirement speech. I enjoy going to this event and seeing the past retirees. And in all honesty I’ve thought of my own retirement a fair bit recently. While I haven’t picked a date yet, it’s less than five years away… and could be as soon as two.

Whenever I talk to retirees, they always share how busy they are. There is so much to do, places to go, people to see. They are not bored and if they want, there is always work they can get. In fact there are quite a few who end up going back to work for the school district. With the retirement bubble that’s happening and a shortage of teachers, opportunities abound.

And then there is the chance to travel more. I don’t have many regrets in life, but I do wish I travelled more when I was younger, and to me retirement opens up an opportunity to make up for that. I could easily list off 10 countries I’d like to visit sooner rather than later.

The thing that I think about most when it comes to retirement is what my routine will look like. I won’t be waking up at 5am to get my workout and writing in. I will be working out for longer, I will spend more time writing. I will also be cooking more meals and eating a bit more healthy. And I’ll probably work to some extent, although I don’t yet know what that will look like? With my retirement date approaching, you might think I’d have a better handle on what I’d be doing after this, but I think enough opportunities will present themselves.

I’m not someone who gets bored. I don’t spend time wondering what to do next. Retirement for me is about creating more options for myself. I’m not running away from my job, nor am I counting the days to the transition. Rather I’m seeing it as an opportunity to do more and different things.

It’s hard not to think of retirement as I head to this dinner to celebrate the retirement of my colleagues. I look to the future and I see myself enjoying that next phase of my life. But day-to-day I try not to think about it too much. There is still work to be done and joy to be found in my work. I’m grateful to have a job that feels purposeful and meaningful, and one that doesn’t have me counting the days until the next phase of my life.

Change of plans

Before covid hit, I was scheduled for a Mediterranean cruise, with stays in Spain and Portugal. One of my daughters had a semester abroad cancelled. And we are not the only ones that have seen all kinds of changes in plans occur.

Today I took a discretionary day off to assist with a family member having surgery, only to learn this morning that the surgery was cancelled. That’s the nature of what the last couple years have been like… The best laid plans of mice and men…

After build-up and expectations, cancelled plans are tough. I think they are taking a toll on people. It’s not a big deal when one thing doesn’t go as planned, but when plans are cancelled again and again, when rules and expectations change again and again, it gets to be mentally exhausting.

We need to give ourselves the permission to be upset and disappointed, we need to allow ourselves the opportunity to be pissed off. And then we need to take a deep breath and move on. It’s not healthy to stay in a state of disappointment. The reality is that remaining in a state of disappointment accomplishes nothing, except maybe to make us feel crappy.

Living through a pandemic is stressful, but the alternative is worse. We’ll get through this. There will be more cancellations. There will be more rule changes. There will be more upset people acting irrationally. But in the end, we’ll persevere, and as long as we are willing to adapt, and be as thoughtful and safe as we can, we will be stronger from the adversity we’ve faced.

Moving forward

Yesterday was a crazy day. I have days sometimes where I set out with a plan and nothing happens as it should. I had no meetings planned until 3:30pm and I was going to get stuff done! Then I didn’t even get 3 minutes in my office at any time before 11:30am. My to do list got bigger, my stuff accomplished didn’t. It’s hard to move forward when when your day takes you a few steps back.

However, before school weight club students did come in and start their day with a workout. And some students asked if I’d do my 8-minute leg workout with them, that I showed them 2 weeks ago. And at lunch I was invited to join a group of students organizing the Remembrance Day assembly and found between 15 and 20 students eager to be involved. One of our Grade 12’s organized the meeting, invited anyone interested via our school-wide Teams channel, and took the lead in the meeting, ensuring everyone there had a role. And I was asked by other students about a budget for Halloween, as they plan events for the afternoon off for activities. An afternoon off that they negotiated with the teachers.

I love seeing students take ownership of the events we run at Inquiry Hub. They are all wearing masks, and being respectful of safety protocols. They are also moving forward with their lives and engaging in, and leading activities.

What did we forget?

My wife and I have a game we play when we go on camping trips. We always forget something and we see how quickly we can figure it out. Today it was coffee mugs. We’ll use the provided mugs in the trailer we rented. We arrived at the campground and started to unpack, and then my daughter realized she left her bathing suite. So my wife and daughter are on their way to Walmart, and I’m headed for a hike with my buddy once he finishes dinner.

It doesn’t matter how many times we travel, how many things we have packed in advance, there’s always something we leave behind… and since we make it a game, it doesn’t bother us at all.

5 weeks

It’s hard to believe that we are just 5 weeks away from the end of the school year. I usually get pangs this time of year as I question what was accomplished versus what I’d hoped for. This year, I think more about just getting to the end safely, and ending the year on a positive note. In December of last year I started saying to myself, in connection to the Coronavirus pandemic, ‘Things will start to get better in January 2022′. I wrote off this entire year with respect to normalcy.

Yes, the vaccine rollout is gaining traction, and now 12 year olds and up can get their first shot, but the percentage of Canadians who have had their second shot is shockingly low. Yet, it looks like my projection might have been pessimistic, and perhaps we might start to see normalcy return in the new school year, but we can’t control who chooses not to be vaccinated and what new variants might start to spread in our communities… I’d rather stick with my projection of next January and be pleasantly surprised that things normalize sooner, rather than be sorrily disappointed if they don’t.

The end of the school year will arrive very quickly. Time will fly by with all the crazy ‘to do’s that must get done to finish off the year. Then I’ll have a couple weeks to tidy up everything and build some excitement for September 2021, a school year of unknowns: A year for optimism blended with caution, hope blended with hesitancy. But right now, the only focus is the next 5 weeks.

Life interrupted

A travel app I use just reminded me that tomorrow night I was supposed to be on a flight to California for the ISTE conference. Cancelled. The next trip on the app was to be 3 weeks from now, heading to Barcelona, where I was to get on my first ever cruise ship with two stops in Spain and three stops in Italy, then spend a week in Portugal. Cancelled.

Will anyone be planning a trip on a cruise ship any time soon? Is my trip to Europe delayed a year or altogether cancelled? ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men… often go awry.’ It is easy to wallow a bit in the shadow of what could have been, but I suddenly find myself making new plans to visit family. Unexpected, and pressing, the plans are thrust upon me, yet something I’m looking forward to. I very well might have been cancelling my ISTE trip anyways.

We tend to plan things like we can somehow control the future. We can’t. So many things can disrupt what we hope to do in the coming days and weeks. There’s nothing like a pandemic to wake us up to that reality! How many jobs have been lost? How many travel plans cancelled? How many concerts, shows, and sporting events put on hold?

Life often gets interrupted. Sometimes it surprises us with unexpected delights, and sometimes with disappointing or devastating news. We can be saddened by upsetting news and plans gone awry, or we can recognize that circumstances beyond our control will often dictate that our best-laid plans are just that, plans… and plans change.