The golden years…Decision making…

A chicken and its young.

“Sightings on the Beach in Bali”

The river that meanders towards the sea on a sunny day.

It may seem that our daily life is all about lazy admiration for our exquisite environment and idle contemplation of the future. However, it is much more complicated than it sounds. 

The wheels are always turning while the fingers fly across the keyboards, not only in preparing each post which usually takes the first half of each day, but also in considering what is yet to come.

A dirty, pink pig we found walking around.

Its not only the consideration of our future bookings; arranging flights, visas, overnight hotel stays between flights, baggage restrictions, transportation, cruises, cruise fares and itineraries, it’s in ensuring we have a good idea of what we’d like the future to hold beyond our furthest planned booking.

In reality, it’s a lot of work, in which long stretches of idle play may leave us with a need to “get crackin.” Oh, don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind the work commensurate with planning for the future. 

We came a very long way.

Actually, we benefit the most from it. At the end of any stretch of “work” lies the prize, a stay in a new location, the onset of a new adventure and the extension of our desire to experience as much of the world as we choose.

Undoubtedly, this first and only second trip to Bali was the exception. We had two months to fill between the recent cruise on the Mekong River and the next 33-night cruise circumnavigating Australia, sailing in a meagre 25 days. Why not return to this beautiful place when it was relatively easy to fly to Bali and the price was right during the off season? 

Of course, there are the 8 to 10 hours on the harrowing round trip from Denpasar to the villa and back. However, we could have easily spent as much time between and on flights to other locations had we chosen to do so.

Locals use motorcycles to carry whatever they can attach.

Nor does it mean that we will never travel back to a preferred location. Maybe sometime in the future. It’s not like we’re doing a reality show that requires so many countries to visit within a few weeks, months, or years. 

We are blessed by the sublime joy of doing just what we want to do. That’s a twist. So much of our old lives were predicated by a preconceived expectation of what we “should be doing” as opposed to the current “want to be doing.” How refreshing is that, albeit ultimately rather self serving?

Who can say that we cannot commit ourselves to a way of life that corresponds to our personal goals and dreams to reach the ultimate meaning of freedom and exploration. Over the years we’ve often heard comments about how a senior shouldn’t watch so much TV, sit quietly alone in their home, spend time online, or go to the casino three times a week. 

The scary path to the buffaloes Tom encountered.

After spending a lifetime raising a family, working for a living, taking care of others, us old timers can do whatever it takes to make us happy, as long as it’s legal and doesn’t impose upon others. 

Doesn’t warning healthy seniors about poor diet, a few too many cocktails (of course, not driving afterward) and a few too many doughnuts, fall on deaf ears. Didn’t we earn the right to make our own choices? Besides at 70, 80 or 90 years old, is a dietary change really going to impact the quality of their lives when taking away certain foods they desire only causes emotional distress? Doesn’t that stress in itself have a negative impact on life?

Sure, I’ve chosen a dietary path that aids greatly in my health. But no one made me do it.  Alone, I made the decision and its served me well. On the other hand, Tom has recently come to accept that food is better-than-medicine and continually eating starches, sugars and carbs have a deleterious effect on his health. It’s a personal choice.

Homes in the area are often built with more durable cement blocks.

Certainly there are those of ill health and less mental clarity that may require the guidance from family and professionals. But, the majority of us are capable of making our own decisions on how we’d like to spend our “golden years.”

Doesn’t that expression imply what it says, “golden years,” not dark and dreary decision-less decades of feeling pushed into doing what others perceive we should be doing in our old age?

How easy it was to tell our aging parents what they should have been doing. Looking back now with the knowledge we’ve gleaned from these past years of traveling the world with an ultimate sense of freedom, we may have felt differently about how we tried to manage the lives of our own aging parents. 

A partially built, never finished, the cement block structure.

No doubt our intentions were based on love and concern. Perhaps we could have offered greater opportunities for them to become more involved in the decision making process instead of, at times, pushing a little bit too hard.

We don’t get a do-over. Ours are gone now.

Perhaps, for baby boomers caring for senior parents, there’s some possible insight and, also for our own (yours and ours) adult children as they watch us age, at times worrying about that which we choose to do: Is it dangerous? Are we putting ourselves at risk? Should we see doctors more often? Take more or less medications? Have more or less surgeries? Travel less? Take less risks?

It’s an imperfect world, especially during this period as we observe so much crumbling around us, often fearful of what the future holds. All we can control and manage is the sphere surrounding our lives. 

A tiny business office of some sort in the neighborhood.

Every chance we have to grasp a bit of happiness, to garner a smidgen of joy, to engage in a hearty belly laugh or to revel in a moment of peace and contemplation is entirely up to us.

May your day bring you all of the above!

Photo from one year ago today, October 6, 2015:

Viewing spot for guests at Namale Resort in Fiji, owned by motivational speaker Tony Robbins, at the edge of this unusual rock formation.  For more photos, please click here.