{"id":5783,"date":"2015-01-01T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/?p=5783"},"modified":"2016-01-07T10:06:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T10:06:57","slug":"what-are-you-going-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/what-are-you-going-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What are you going to do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What are you going to do?<\/strong>
\nBy Roger Leitch<\/em><\/p>\n

I have lost count of how many times I have been asked this question since my retirement became known and in the weeks that followed my last day of paid work.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I have been asking myself the same question.<\/p>\n

Finishing work after 43 years was an emotional roller coaster.
\nI know people say “you will be missed” when you leave but the truth is that work will continue without us.
\nWhat I did not expect was that those well-meaning messages would get to me the way they did.
\nI have even received a long service award certificate signed by Sir Michael himself.<\/p>\n

I suspect that many people who leave work find they have a gap in their lives – we miss work, not the other way around!.<\/p>\n

So what am I doing?<\/p>\n

I have made enquiries about working with a charity, but not heard anything yet.
\nI have plenty of stuff to sort out, several long delayed \u201cprojects\u201d to complete and others that should have been started a while back.
\nWhen Jesus spoke about us doing greater things than Him, I suspect He was not referring to using a power saw.
\nI have a growing number of \u201cto do lists\u201d I am working through until I have a better idea of what I am going to do, but there is no rush into anything.<\/p>\n

I am beginning to realise that all those retired people who said they wondered how they found time to go to work may have had a point.
\nSo far I have not had time to watch any day time TV \u2013 fortunately that is not on any of my to do lists.<\/p>\n

The main thing I am realising is that work was really only a part of my life – it consumed less than 1\/3 of my waking hours.
\nNobody has ever asked what I was going to do with the 2\/3rds of the time I was not working!<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are employed then you do usually have to be at work for a good part of several days of every week, but that still leaves you with a significant amount of time that you can choose to use in different ways. For family, for yourself, for others or for God\u2019s Kingdom.<\/p>\n

So whether you are employed or retired – what are you going to do?<\/p>\n

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