Time for more?
I retired early. In Holland, there are very employee-friendly regulations. One of this was that an employee can retire at 60 instead of at 65.
I had been toiling since I was 24. When the option was offered, I jumped at it.
They even arranged me to go on a resident course to prepare myself for retirement. What kept repeating during the course was the need to have hobbies on which one can fall back on retirement.
Luckily, I had too many hobbies.
Even though I retired from a career in IT, I still regard it as a hobby. So I still dabble in software development, dabbling in my pet projects, which involve computer control. These projects also involve electronics. Incidentally, it is my love of electronics, which dragged me into computing on the false hope that computing involved electronics. Was I disappointed? You bet! Yet I clung on for the rest of my working life.
At that course, a lady asked me whether I would like to get involved with voluntary work. That was an interesting idea, and I took it. I reported to the local organization and joined as a volunteer to help our "matured" generation master computer skills.
The experience is an eye-opener. I thoroughly recommend it to any person - retired or active.
There is this organisation in The Netherlands called The SeniorWeb. Its mission is to help 55-plussers master computer skills. It is sponsored by a leading bank - Rabo Bank, and supported by volunteers. I have been avolunteer for more than 5 years now. I am also an ambassador in the organisation.
I helped our local chapter to set up Internet cafes for the members, helped maintain and run the technical infrastructure, and also helped with the lessons.
That is an idea for you too.
Then there was this telephone chat with a friend of mine who wanted to set up a business selling "quality" expertise. He had already got some people interested and even had a pamphlet printed for distribution among potential businesses. He wanted a Web site set up too. During the discussion, I let it be known that the last few years of my working life, I was very much involved with devising methods for improving software quality. That made me also a member of the partnership. Over the chat, I suggested he visit me and then we can see what we can do.What we can do eventually ended up with a company logo, a Web site design and plans and designs for a handout.
I had my neighbour friend Michel, a painter, helping us with the art work, colour schemes and so on. While I listened to the discussions, I could not help scribbling the following lines:
See all evil,
Hear all evil,
Speak all evil,
Cleansed!
To me that was what quality improvement in a nutshell. Later in the day I read out for all the hear. I was shouted down, except by Michel. He kept nodding, in a sort of "Hmm I know…" profile.
When the rush was over, and my friend had returned to UK, Michel called in to see me. Over a drink, he casually suggested that I take up poetry!
Well, I was speechless. My past life seemed to flash past before me - especially the "O" level age, when we had study poetry, which I always played truant!
"Rubbish," he said, "You can do it. I know you can do it," He sounded so confident. He didn't stop me at that - he gave me books, and volunteered to meet me every week to check on my progress. That was in October 2006.
Now I think, what a fool had I been to have missed the poetry lessons in school!
I am now (mid-February 2009) getting ready to publish my first collection. There is still a lot of work to do before I will be ready to go to print. You can book your copy now. Just drop me a line.