3 Months after Early Retiremeent

Some of  my friends told me that I would be bored three months after retirement and soon I would look for a job again. Now, 3 months has passed, I don't even have any feeling on going back to be an full-time employee again. This is simply because I very much enjoy my time being filled up with various activities such as having daily morning exercise, having my each meals slowly, taking care of my plants, slow reading, learning Japanese and Hakka, watching my favorite dramas, tutoring on my kids school subjects, helping my wife on house work and cooking, shopping around with my wife during weekdays...(the list goes on). What surprise me is that I only realize that I have so many activities when I am writing this.

Recently, I have dig out my long lost-touched guitar. After replacing the broken first and second strings, I started to play with it a week ago. Since I could only play simple guitar music, I would like to learn more on guitar playing skill at the lowest possible cost.

My wife even suggests me to learn ukulele as well since my son has one which has been kept in his cupboard for years. Why not? To me, ukulele is another small scaled guitar with 4 strings on it. However, it is really too small which, sometime, I have problem to put my left fingers on it while playing. However, I would like to take this challenge since I have time to learn and practice.  Most importantly, I am interested in it.

After days of playing, my left hand fingers are aching. I know this is normal as I have not played guitar for more than 30 years. I am sure that I will get use to it sooner or later.

In short, after deducting 8 sweet dream hours, 16 hours a day is insufficient for me to do what I like. I am so busy that I really don't have time for a full-time job :)

Without work pressure, I started to think about whether I still need medication on controlling my blood pressure. I know long term medication is not favorable to my liver and kidney. Worst still, by simply pulling down blood pressure blindly without knowing the cause might result in organs malfunction due to insufficient blood supply to sustain my lifestyle. Therefore, I start to wonder whether I could control it myself or not. I know I am an easy panicking person. Anxiety is the main root cause on unfavorable blood pressure. My blood pressure especially abnormal when I was at work (under great pressure) and clinic (panicking). Since a month ago, I start to closely monitor my blood pressure without medication. The result is encouraging. So far, my blood pressure reading without medication is about the same as the period I had medication. I shall continue to closely monitor it. To maintain a reasonable blood pressure, I must ensure that I maintain my current BMI, which is 22. To keep this, I must exercise regularly which I have been doing it for 6 days a week, at least an hour a day. I also dining at home most of the time to minimize the chance of taking too much unhealthy outside food. Most importantly, I must try to relax myself which I am working on it.

To escalate family value, I am also planning to travel along the west coast of peninsular Malaysia with my kids and wife. This will be my another self drive family trip. As this is a free and easy trip for us the get along, we have total control on our time and place to go. I am looking forward on this family trip.

Life is short, play hard. :)