What Now Shall I Do With My Life?

Have you ever asked this question:  What shall I do with my life?  It is a question that haunts a friend of mine and it is a question that haunts me every day.  It is an unsettling question my friend says, and I agree.  I suspect it is a question all people ask of themselves at every age.  I suppose, too, that the question when asked at 21 years of age is quite a different question than when asked at the age of 40.  As the years flow by the question becomes an even bigger one.   “What now shall I do with my life at three-score and ten plus 3?  

I’m retired!  What does that mean?  Well, for me it means being liberated.  I am now free from financial pressure; a heavy burden and worry through all of my “working” life.  Indeed, I am free now to practice a conscious pattern of distribution rather than accumulation.   I am now free from the responsibility of raising a family.  I am free from the pressures of employment, since I no longer need to earn money.  I am free to set my own schedule.  I am liberated in so many ways and I am grateful that this is the case.

I’m also tired!  Yes, maturity brings on this phenomenon, along with many other physical limitations.  I must confess that I can no longer do what I once did.  Thank goodness, I don’t have to!  I write this because I want to be honest about this period of  life and admit that maturity has its problems as well as its benefits.

Yet, in spite of being “retired” and “tired,” the question keeps nagging away at me and my friend:  What NOW shall I do with my life?  I’ve found great joy in traveling in these autumnal years.  I have time now to read the many books I’ve always wanted to read,  and I read constantly.  I have found an outlet for my rantings and ravings via a Blog (I am free now to  speak my mind without sifting my thoughts through various filters).  But is this enough to be called really living?  

I asked the question years ago--but it has kept
popping-up through the years!

I’m living the question and awaiting some answers.  I hope they come soon and while it is day.  I don’t want to squander my life (a unique thing that can never be replaced) even in the latter days of its existence here.  Jesus said, “I have come to give you life.”  I believe that, feel I have lived that life (though it has been a feeble attempt) but how do I live LIFE out NOW?  It is such an important question:  What NOW shall I do with my life?