Serious Leisure – how to retyre

“Your mind is the garden, 
your thoughts are the seeds,
the harvest can either be flowers or weeds.”

William Wordsworth

Several years ago, after my MBA, himself had a crazy idea that I do a temp job with Starbucks as a coffee barista. I did not take up his suggestion as I was worried about running into my friends in this down-and-out state. Many years later, I would be paying good money (instead of being paid) to learn café culture and how to do latte art.  Café culture is really big time in Asia now, and something I really wished I had picked up.

How to make good use of your downtime, whether voluntary or involuntary. No experience is ever wasted. In his timeout figuring out his next step, Steve by Apps Hat Mini” href=”#”> jobs learnt western calligraphy and the landscape of printed font was never the same again. (I can’t stand courier.)

Author of Roget’s Thesaurus, Dr Peter Mark Roget, published his Thesaurus of antonyms and synonyms in his 70s. An obsessive-compulsive, with a family history of depression, making lists calmed him. You can read about his story in this website on late bloomers.

I’m drawing inspiration from (2015) “Deng Xiaoping” by Ezra Vogel. In his 3yrs, banished by boss to manual labor in the Jiangxi rural countryside, Deng, the chief architect of China’s economic rise, read late into the night, and was formulating, how to reform China. He was 65 yrs old then, while men younger than him fell to depression.

85 Ideas on what to do with your downtime.

Some ideas here came from “How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free – Retirement wisdom that you won’t get from your financial advisor” by Ernie J. Zelinski. I’ve added my own cultural specific ones. Free lessons can be obtained from the internet (Youtube), internet, local library or local community centres.

1. Learn art of Japanese tea making
2. Experience Café Culture
3. Coffee Appreciation class
4. How to create latte art
5. Learn western calligraphy
6. Learn Chinese calligraphy
7. Learn to bake Hokkaido milk bread
8. Join a club such as the Lions or Rotary.
9. Join public speaking club such as Toastmasters
10. Learn to grow plants
11. Record the history of your hometown
12. Create a drawing of your family tree
13. Write your family tree on how your ancestors have affected your life
14. Become a connoisseur of inexpensive restaurants.  (ieatishootiblog)
15. Chinese tea appreciation
16. Grow a herb garden
17. Go back to university and get a degree
18. Watch interesting court cases at the courthouse
19. Go sailing
20. Gaze at the stars
21. Write poetry
22. Memorise a poem
23. Learn famous quotations
24. Start a collection of …
25. Write a mobile app
26. Teach children from low income families to read
27. Teach English as a second language
28. Practice the art of gratitude
29. Do something for others for 29 days
30. Declutter your room/ drawer/ cabinet
31. Paint a self portrait
32. Write a novel
33. Write a “How to”
34. Compile lists of … (remember Roget’s Thesaurus)
35. Play guitar or ukulele
36. Learn to speak a foreign language (Spanish, German, Chinese)
37. Paint watercolors
38. Take an online writing course
39. Write a diary/ journal
40. Take a one hour walk everyday
41. Visit the museums
42. Volunteer as a museum guide and attend their training
43. Learn pottery making
44. Volunteer in a home for the aged
45. Visit your parents
46. Bestow gift of real listening without interrupting
47. Be certified as a career counsellor
48. Sponsor a child in Haiti/ Vietnam
49. Meditate for 30 mins daily
50. Practice a new habit for 21 days
51. Spend an hour by the beach/ riverbank and listen to the sound of water
52. Speak to your plants
53. Make a list of favourite music in different genres (Jazz, Classical, Opera, Pop, R&B, Hip-Hop)
54. Watch movies of different genres (e.g. Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Kurosawa, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai
55. Learn different form of photography (portraiture, black-white, nature, children, night, action)
56. Learn martial arts (e.g  Tae Kwando, Akido)
57. Go mountain-climbing with a friend.
58. Take up dancing (Ball room, waltz, Zumba)
59. Have friends over for lunch
60. Volunteer to Teach a children arts-and-crafts class
61. Volunteer to build in “Habits for Humanity”
62. Learn about other religions
63. Go to church.
64. Sketch daily, buildings, new inventions
65. Learn to hash-tag on Facebook
66. Have a long conversation with a child and see where the conversation takes you
67. Play a game with young children (depending on age, e.g. playdough, card games, guessing names)
68. Cook
69. Invite your friends for tea/ lunch
70. Visit a different part of town never visited
71. Bake a tart
72. Make a list of all your friends
73. Email/ send a card, written note (one person a day) on what you appreciate about them
74. Learn art of gift wrapping
75. Learn the art of small talk
76. Start a web page of inspiring quotations
77. Sweep your floors everyday
78. Try finger painting
79. Cook a different cuisine (e.g learn to make Vietnamese Spring rolls or Thai Pomelo salad from Youtube)
80. Learn to swim
81. Learn to play chess/ mah-jong/ bridge
82. Learn about fashion/ colors that suit your skin tone
83. Shoot a mobile video
84. Climb to the top of the hill and watch the sunrise
85. Walk for 4hours (that’s what Charles Dickens does to de-stress from writing!

Create your own 85 things to do in your free time. Make it 100!

This blog post was first published in 2015