Freedom from Hurry and Ambition

“Hurry” is defined as moving or acting with haste; to be busy and always rushed. “Ambition” is defined as a strong desire to do or to achieve something, an intention, an objective, a goal, success, etc., typically requiring determination and hard work.   Retirement liberates us from both!  

There is no longer a need to hurry, to fight the clock, or worry about being somewhere at a certain time. Most of my adult years were spent being a slave to “hurry,’ but now I am free to live at a slower pace.  My life now is far less hectic and I enjoy living without a schedule, especially those schedules set for me by others.  I am now free to determine my own schedule; an extremely liberating experience.  

There is now freedom from ambition—that driving urge that monopolized much of my time—to succeed in my profession or in whatever else—that pressure has been removed.  I’ve outgrown it.  I have nothing to prove to myself or to anyone else.  I do not have a need to impress anyone.

I am liberated from both hurry and ambition.  I don’t miss either one of them—and looking back, I often wish that I knew “then” what I know “now!”  All that hurry and ambition activity in those earlier years was often a shallow thing, sometimes empty of meaning, and even, on occasion,  a “waste of time.”  Life is so much more than hurry and ambition.

This does not mean I have given up, or that I dwell in the days gone by, or that I am always contemplating my demise as suggested by “My Get Up and Go—Has Got Up and Went.”

Since I have retired from life’s competition

I busy myself with complete repetition

I get up each morning, dust off my wits,

Pick up my paper and read the “Obits”—

If my name is missing I know I’m not dead,

…[And I think of all the grand places my get-up has been].

I prefer the words of Dr. Seuss:

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself any direction you choose.