Time on my hands.

It's nice to have time on one's hands. It is, after all, our most precious gift, but it passes so quickly, whether we use it well or we let it slip through our fingers and waste it. As one gets older many experience the perception that time passes more quickly and this can be quite disconcerting. A number of big sci-fi films have focused on the value of time. Logan's Run (1976) depicts a utopian future society on the surface, revealed as a world where the population and the consumption of resources are maintained in equilibrium by killing everyone who reaches the age of 30.  and In Time (2011), people are designed to stop aging on their 25th birthday. All people have a digital clock on their forearm; when they turn 25, they stop aging and their clock begins counting down from one year.When the clock reaches zero, that person "times out" and dies. Time has become the universal currency and can be transferred between people or "time capsules."

All of us are on our own individual journeys, shared at times with others and at others on our own. Each person's life is unique to them.

Christians see their lives as a gift from God with a plan and a purpose that He has designed and pre-destined for us, and it is our task to discover this and live it out in the strength He gives us using the talents and abilities He has gifted us with. Psalm 139:16 says this: "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Being semi-retired sounds amazing, but it brings it's own challenges and a whole range of emotions and feelings. After the initial honeymoon period of taking day trips and holidays, a new reality kicks in. One is likely to be living on a pension with a dramatically reduced income, with responsibilities such as to one's grown up children or ageing relatives. We never stop being parents, and the State is no longer the universal carer it used to be in our age of cuts and austerity. Society runs on the goodwill of volunteers, and everyone wants your services. Their need is seemingly insatiable. It is very easy to over commit, and put oneself under pressure we don't really want in our lives. Some of us will prefer to find part-time work to supplement our reduced incomes. There seem to be so many grandchildren, nephews and nieces to find Christmas and birthday presents for, and then there are the charities asking for our generosity. It is true that the "Baby Boomer" generation have done better financially than our children's generation, and they have many needs. There is also the likelihood of boredom in how to fill our time when we can't afford to be on holiday again, or our partners are either working or busy carers and can't get away. So you see, retirement is not what it seems! Now some people have lots of hobbies or sports, but if you have worked full time for thirty or forty years you may not have developed these interests and not everyone can take them up so easily once they are in their sixties or seventies.
None of us knows the time we have before us on this earth, or how healthy we will be to enjoy it yet the Government makes grand assumptions and keeps putting back the State Pension age based upon the fact that people are living longer, ignoring how many of us will not actually be able to work longer due to ill health or dementia for instance. This growing elderly population requires increasing medical treatments yet the NHS is denied the funds it needs to provide for these needs, and lurches from one crisis to another. 
So, what's one to do? Live life to the full. Grab the opportunities that come and remember to help the poor, the disadvantaged, the homeless person and the refugee. They also have a life.