Are These To Be Rules?

Dick Stein

February 16

Or virtues? Or serving suggestions?

That sounds like the picture on a tin of canned pudding - but perhaps it is accurate to say I am making a list of things that will serve me in the future…whether they will serve me better than at present or just serve me right is to be seen.

Let's call them good ideas. so I suggest to me…

Stay loyal to your family and friends…and to some degree your acquaintances. This is, in itself, a virtue…and it has the practical benefit of securing a wider base of support when you need it.

You had a fine childhood and youth with loving parents to raise you and a good chance at a career and family for yourself. Do not decry any of it nor waste the effort that has been already expended.

Recognise that, as a retired person, you will not have an ever-increasing wealth. The financial stream flows the other way now. Do what you can to be frugal without being miserly or miserable.

You cannot and should not eat, drink, travel, or spend as much as in your professional days. Indeed you probably were not as careful an accountant of your own benefits then as you will be now. Nevertheless you have sufficient to be satisfied, and would be a fool to consider yourself otherwise.

Pursue decent enjoyments while you can. These include hobbies, acquaintance, learning, and appreciation of whatever art and beauty presents itself.

Pursue them without letting them become obsessions. Derive as much benefit from each experience as it can provide, but - just like eating or drinking - stop when the pleasure stops. There is a time for everything.

Perform the tasks of the day - cleaning, cooking, driving, etc. with attention. No good seeking idle distraction all the time or being annoyed at having to work for your cleanliness, nutrition, travel etc.

If the jobs are so repetitive as to suggest that you are just pounding sand down a hole, stop doing them and seek some other way of passing the time. And it could be a hint that there is a better way of doing things, could you only think of it.

Okay - that's four good ideas for the day. Four more tomorrow, perhaps.