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Retirement and Ikigai

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Written by: Healthysport

Created: 07 May 2024

Last Updated: 14 May 2024

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[these are my distances and HR readings in my jogs last week. notice how my heart can reach up to 158 when i increased speed]

I woke up today at around 4 am, lingered on my bed before getting up to meditate. I meditate through written words as I cannot do it mentally (unlike the great meditators who sit quietly and direct their concentration in their minds) as my brain lacks the discipline for that. But writing my thoughts seems to work out. People call it journaling. I usually talk with the Supreme Being about all the things happening around me. 

My garden has started to pull my attention again. I find it a little challenging at times, much like my exercises. But it is fulfilling. I surveyed my quarter acre lot to take a mental picture of how to clean and add more color to it. I trimmed the plants that are growing aggressively at the expense of other plants. I am rearranging and modifying their placements. They do respond to my tweaking. I noticed my young jacaranda sprouting new branches after I cut it to size. All the cuttings I started a few weeks ago have sprouted and are replanted and thriving. All is well, I think. But it can be exhausting. All the watering and weeding and replanting can take a lot of your energy.

Another activity I am enjoying is working out. I have avoided the gym since the pandemic, but I am gradually getting back to it. I prefer a very early morning gym workout to avoid the crowd and my sessions are each 1-hour tops. I usually prefer the gym for strengthening, lifting weights, and occasional aerobics, mainly ellipticals and stationary bikes. I would do aerobics in the gym if the weather were bad, but I want my cardio done outdoors all the time. Nothing can beat the fresh wind hitting your face, the sun peeking between the sky clouds, birds twittering and tree canopies dancing alongside me.

[i am back to my favorite leg machines]

I think my right knee is recovering. I am slowly jogging at a more age-appropriate pace.  Roughly between 14 to 18 minutes pace, a far cry from the 9 to 10 min pace I used to enjoy as a younger man. There are two things I pay close attention to during my cardiovascular workouts - heart rate and pain. I stay as close as possible to 80 to 90 percent of my maximal heart rate, roughly between 130 -140 beats/minute. I occasionally push my heart a little but not as much as I did when I reached up to 170s heart rate as a young man. One approach I employed to lessen the stress on my knees during my current jogs was to stay on the flat surfaces to run on and shorten the strides.

I will turn 62 in a couple of months and for that, I am preparing myself for what amounts to my new normal. A lot of us imagine retirement as putting an end to work or job as we know it. We imagine staying in bed as long as we want and doing things at a slower pace. But the more I think about it, retirement should be a transition from the usual regular day to day job to another, but this time the new job is easy, light, something we love to do and hopefully can be monetized in the future. 

Interestingly, the Japanese have a term for this active retirement. Ikigai.

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that refers to the source of value in one's life or the things that make life worth living. In Japanese, "iki" means "life," and "gai" indicates "worth" or "value." Ikigai is about finding joy, fulfillment, and balance in the daily routine of life, essentially finding one's "reason to live" or "raison d'être." It's a unique approach that combines personal passion, mission, vocation, and profession, leading to a fulfilling life. The concept emphasizes the importance of having a purpose that brings satisfaction and meaning to life (source:  Bing definition).

Ikigai also appears related to the concept of flow, as described in the work of Hungarian American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. For Csikszentmihalyi, flow occurs when you are in your “zone,” as they say of high-performing athletes.

Flow is a string of “best moments” or moments when we are at our best. These best moments “usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limit, in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

Flow can be said to occur when you are consistently doing something you love and that you are good at, with the possible added benefit of bringing value to others’ lives. In such a case, flow might be seen as in tune with your ikigai, or activities that give your life meaning and purpose.

(source: The Philosophy of Ikigai: 3 Examples About Finding Purpose (positivepsychology.com)

The way I see it, I am not embarking on something radical at retirement. My days will still involve workouts, meditating, and maybe a few hours of work here and there. I may include gardening now on days I have more time. My afternoons will be reserved for reading, writing, and programming using different computer languages. All these are my favorite activities with or without pay. 

Each retiree has a favorite routine, and mine is unique. Others may want to enjoy time with their family or spend more time with longtime friends. Others would like to travel and perhaps share with the world (social media) their trips. There are others who’d like to focus on spirituality or more learning or even sharing their knowledge through teaching and writing and the latest now is through vlogging. The one thing I’d caution retirees is against investing in businesses they know nothing about. I’ve heard of many sad stories about people who lost a lot of money because they tried and failed in businesses, they thought were easy to manage and earn money but lost everything instead. Remember that when you were young it was easy to fail because you still have all the time to start all over again, a luxury no longer available when old and retired. The best investment a retiree should consider is health improvement.  No amount of money can match the ability to wake up one day knowing you can still do what you want to do without limits, or without worrying about the next maintenance pill to make or the next chemo, or the next MD appointment because something needs to be attended to in your body.  I’ve also been warned about the boredom of retirement if you didn’t prepare for it, and I am preparing for it. A few people might think that retirement is a complete cessation of work. It should be more like a transition from heavy work to light work, not the other way around. But work, whether paid or not, is still an active lifestyle. I have no idea yet of what kind of work I would pursue. I have an IT degree which I focused on programming in my remote past so that is most likely where I will bury my head into. Someone may suggest that with AI, programmers are now twelve a penny, but I don’t care. There is beauty in figuring things out through mental calisthenics and programming has an edge in that area. I will be doing it to challenge my brain, not to be an expert or an important person.

No one knows the future. Two weeks ago, there was a sudden change in my workplace, and I was ‘forced’ to handle a role that required more responsibilities. I used to be a fast learner but not anymore. Instead of dealing with only two subtasks to an evaluation job I do, I have to add 3 more. This takes time and I am not used to the extra time I now allot to my work on a daily basis. There is a future relief, however, as a new boss to replace the old boss is about to join our team in a week or so. All I need at this point is to hold the fort for a few more months and it will be alright.