How do you learn in retirement?

Having recently moved to a Retirement Community I ponder the question: How do we learn something new in retirement? How do we keep growing? It begins with two things, I think: The first is curiosity and the second is postponed dreams.

In retirement we have, perhaps for the first time in our lives, some time free of deadlines and appointments. How shall we fill these empty hours?

In the beginning we are amazed with long stretches of unrequired responsibility—time to just BE. It is a pampering that we are unused to. Friends and family, still immersed in daily tasks, envy us this freedom and we ourselves wake each morning amazed at the agenda of an empty slate—a whole day stretching before us unscheduled.

There is the busy work of settling in, of unpacking the much fewer possessions that surround our daily lives, of adjusting to a new schedule, new neighbors, new friends, but basically the hours are ours to spend as we wish.

After a few weeks, a stirring begins deep inside us—a curiosity about new paths our lives could have taken—missed opportunities to develop a certain skill or complete some long postponed learning, and the startling question: “Why not try it now?”

Perhaps we always wanted to take piano lessons or try painting or finish a degree or perhaps take a writing class where we can vicariously create and live any life we choose—a pirate—a world traveler—a spy—a missionary.

One side of us might protest: “Be a beginner at THIS stage of your life?” But the other side answers “Why not? You have nothing to prove and a latent talent might be just below the surface.”

With this attitude learning becomes play. Perhaps we always wanted to do more community work but the grind of a daily job and the burden of making a living filled our days. With the freedom of retirement we can discard the anxiety of “How much does this pay?” Not guilt-driven or for career advancement, we enter with abandon, a new sense of service.

A retirement community is comforting as we meet contemporaries who are as amazed as we are at the new world our grandchildren are living in—with IPods and IPads and Skyps—leaving behind simple computer skills which still challenge us. Is this challenge too much for us with our slowed responses? We won’t ever know unless we try it.

Or not—we have the choice.