Retired life is a blessing, live it to the full

By Sunil Saxena

The distance from my home in Noida to the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi is around 35 km. On normal days, it takes a little over an hour to reach the airport.

That is what I had factored when, recently, I went to drop a friend at the airport.

I could not have been more off the mark. It took me over three hours. My left knee literally stopped responding.

The drive brought back memories of my working years when I used to drive through similar traffic. I used to curse it then, and I cursed it yesterday.

Is this the way to live?

I thanked my stars that I had stopped working.  For four long decades I was part of this rat race. Get up early, snatch a quick breakfast and drive through maddening traffic to work and drive back in equally chaotic conditions.

If this was not frustrating enough, my working life was full of turbulent moments. There was not a moment of peace.

It’s a surprise that I survived.

It is now two years since I stopped working, and I have enjoyed every moment of those six months. It’s almost as if life has gone in a reverse mode. Everything that I wanted to do when I was working, and I could not, I can do now.

I don’t have to get up early. I wake up when I want. I can sit on my laptop and be creative. There are no deadlines, no pressures to submit a story, no Editors breathing down my neck. There are days when I don’t even open my laptop, and I don’t feel guilty.

I still buy a newspaper, but I don’t read it from page to page. There was a time when I bought eight newspapers to see what others had reported. Now, I don’t care. Why should I worry what is happening in the rest of the world? Let those who are still a part of the rat race do the worrying.

My greatest pleasure has been the silencing of the idiot box. I don’t have to suffer the noisy anchors and their half-baked opinions any more.

And Twitter (now X). For more than a decade, the blue bird ruled my life. I can’t tell you what sadistic pleasure I derived when I hit the account delete button on X. Who wants those followers? No more X, no more brainless tweets.

The ceaseless digital and electronic din has been replaced by the good, old book. What a joy it is to curl up in the bed on cold, wintry nights and hungrily devour the classics once again. I had almost forgotten the feel of yellowing, physical pages.

Even shopping has become so much more pleasurable. I go to malls on weekdays, and that too in the middle of the day. There is no crush of weekend shoppers, and no battle to find a parking place. I can park comfortably and laze around as long as I wish.

For decades, I travelled only for my organisation. Not for myself. Time is now with me. I am going to travel when and wherever I feel like.

Life is smiling again. Retirement has been an absolute godsend. There is no need to worry about tomorrow.  I own all my living moments now.

And so should you.

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Retired life is an open highway; let’s cruise on it
Life after retirement: 3 lessons that I learnt from my editors