Part 5 of my Life

Part 5 is retirement, the final years.

For me the time ahead when I am retired should be the time I see as being free, imagine a life with no constraints, a certain freedom to be who and what ever you want to be. Okay so you are by that time old, maybe even a little physically restricted, but at that time in your life you should be your most freest. Yet for me, and once again, I get the feeling that by the time I get to that age I still do not believe I will be living my life as a fully free man.

And there is lies the problem, the challenges, that have impacted on my life so much. Yes I have always lived with the issue of not knowing what it was I really wanted in life, and yes I have lived with the issue of not having a plan or a really determined direction for my life, but I seem to have managed okay with that. So should I now be looking at that time ahead and start now to make plans and ambitions for the retirement years. Or should I now just get on with living the remainder of life in exactly the same way I have thus far.

One thing I do know is that in 20 years time I will still be an Arsenal fan, however I do also really wonder just what it will be that I will be a fan of. For me Arsenal football club will certainly not be the same, I know that both Arsenal and football in general will change beyond recognition. Arsene will have gone, and possibly at least 3 more managers will have come and gone, the Emirates will be paid for and finally we won’t be talking about “potential” or “youth”. Jack Wilshire will have become a legend and I will still believe that that Friday night in May 1989 was still both the greatest night in my life and Arsenals.

By then I will have completed my 50 before 50 list, and maybe even done a 60+ list as well. I know by then I will have done so many other things that others only dream of, and finally I will have found the peach needed within to savour all of the flavours of life golden moments.

Somehow I think I will be good in the retirement years, by that I mean I will really have learned how to really take every ounce of pleasure from everything, every experience and that I will know how to live rather than just survive. I also think by then that PaulKavanagh.com will be the biggest site in the world, 1000's pf pages, it will be weird to look back and see it.