As I wind down this evening, I’m taking a few minutes to just dream about the future, especially the retirement future! I am feeling hopeful and excited, but I’m also feeling a tad bit apprehensive. Apprehensive that I haven’t planned financially as well as I could have? Apprehensive that it is wrong to dream about tomorrow since tomorrow is not promised? But mostly I am just taking a few minutes to think of the day I look back and say “ I made it, this is the day I dreamed about for so very long.” “This is the day I knew would come to pass.
My number one dream for the future is to become a grandmother. It’s actually very hard for me to put that grandmother scene in my mind though. I don’t believe that is because I think it won’t happen, I believe it’s just hard for me to picture tomorrow because of my job. The stress of my job can make me feel oppressed. It can dim that light that I know is at the end of the tunnel. It can bring an uneasy feeling about tomorrow. But I fight the oppression, I strain even harder to see that light (that is there) and I rebuke those uneasy feelings, with all my strength! Sure, tomorrow might not be promised, but death isn’t promised tomorrow either. No one knows when their time on earth will end, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have hope. Hope is what gets us through to tomorrow! (And maybe some extra shipping boxes on your doorstep to fuel your online shopping habits.) So when I feel apprehensive that it is wrong to dream about tomorrow, I make sure to remind myself that I’m totally fine to dream away!
My financial apprehension is probably very common for most soon to be retirees. Maybe we could’ve gotten out of debt sooner, but then again maybe we couldn’t have? After all, the one who helped us to finally get out of debt had to walk the path he walked, to be educated enough to help us. And just maybe we couldn’t have gotten out of debt without his help? Maybe the apprehension is actually a good thing? Maybe that means we aren’t dumb enough to think it will be easy or dumb enough to think we won’t have to watch our budget closely? Maybe being apprehensive is exactly what is going to ensure that we move forward in an excited, yet wise way? Maybe we could’ve put more money in the retirement fund, and then again if we had maybe the financial growth might not have been much better even with the extra contributions? So really there’s just no reason to second guess yourself.
Nope, there’s just no good reason! Instead don’t worry about what you can’t change, ask for forgiveness if you need to and move forward, even if forgiveness isn’t given. Go ahead, try with all your might to dream that vivid picture of being that grandmother who gives her grandchildren huge shipping boxes filled with holiday gifts in the winter. Let that hope strengthen you, let that hope carry you through hard days, let that hope help you to get healthy today, for your grandkids tomorrow. Use that hope to declutter, in preparation for tomorrow. Box up all the stuff that is tying you down, organize and store it neatly, or give it away totally (both tangible and mental stuff.) Go ahead dream about the future, dream that big dream, dream that unfathomable dream, use that dream for all its worth, ride that dream as long as you can!
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