Retirement Planning

My friend John is a laugher, a hugger, a joyful being who is fully engaged in life and always up to new opportunity.  I've learned that he's also a great planner and organizer.  When John retired, he decided to create his own retirement plan.  No, not the financial kind, although I'm sure John had already addressed that issue.  This retirement plan was a plan as to how he would fill the 40 hours per week that had been devoted to his work.  His plan was quite meticulous, focusing on all of his desires (what we'd likely call a bucket list today).  He wanted to learn basic Spanish, exercise every day, spend more time with family and friends, increase his volunteer hours, among other things.  John has been retired for several years.  Recently, he reviewed his retirement plan with me and all of the things he had hoped to accomplish during that time.  It certainly looks to me as if he is fulfilling his retirement dream, perhaps in large part because he had given attention to planning for it and had committed it to paper.  For those of us thinking about what retirement may mean to us someday, developing such a plan would seem to be part of the preparation for a fulfilling next chapter in life.