The Time Will Go By Either Way
A Reflection on Intentional Living and Why Retirement Preparation Starts Now
🟢 When my husband was in his mid to late thirties, he was contemplating going back to university to get his bachelor’s degree and his master’s. It was a big decision because although he would achieve a personal goal, it would feel like he was putting other aspects of his life on hold for six years. Then my father-in-law said something so wise that it immediately put everything into perspective.
“Whether you choose to go back to school or not, the time will go by.”
It’s a simple sentence but it packed truth and power. He is right. Whether we make the bold choice or the safe one, the time passes either way.
🧭 4,000 Weeks
I have written before about Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks. It has honestly stuck with me because it packs that same punch of truth and power as my father-in-law’s comment. Oliver says that the average lifespan is approximately 76 years and if you multiply that by 52 weeks per year it gives everyone roughly 4,000 weeks. 4,000 weeks of life doesn’t sound like much does it?
When I think of this number, it immediately makes me think about my own 4,000 weeks and how I can make sure I use them well. And then it gets really sobering when I realize I have well over half of those weeks already behind me.
My husband and I enjoy long walks and we talk about this. How can we maximize the time we have left? What is important to us and how do we want to spend it? Where do we want to spend it? We’ve spent time talking about the opportunity to move from the prairies so that we can enjoy being outdoors way longer than six months per year. I’m starting to discover what I’m truly passionate about and what I’d like to continue doing during retirement.
We don’t always have the answers of course. But we’ve decided that not thinking and preparing for it now is the one thing we can’t afford. We’ve also found that preparing for it now is rewarding. We’re having fun discovering what we actually like, verses the things we’re good at but don’t really bring us joy. We’re learning new things that we want to make sure is part of our retirement plan and what we want to leave out.
🌱 Poiema
I learned recently that the Greek word for ‘workmanship’ is poiema. It means something crafted with intention, formed with care. A masterpiece. It’s actually where we get the English word poem from and I can imagine the poet carefully choosing each word.
That word, poiema, started creating a picture in my head. I think of a potter carefully molding a vase out of clay. Or the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona — it has taken over 140 years to build, and every single stone required custom cutting and placement. Incredible.
My mind went to a deeper question then. If a potter brings that level of care and intention to a vase, shaping it, tending it, adjusting as she goes, what would it look like to bring that same intention to the design of my own life?
It’s a challenging question because, if I’m honest, there have been seasons of my life where I’ve just let things happen rather than designing them. I went with the flow. Knowing what I do now, I don’t retirement to be one of those seasons.
I’m not even retired yet but I’m already thinking of what I want to craft. I don’t want to waste one moment of retirement trying to figure out what I want to do, or worse, realize that I needed a runway to do some of the things I really want to do!
The reality is that time will go by whether we are intentional about how we use it or not.
💡 The Sweet Spot in action
That’s a wonderful idea that we should all be intentional about how we use our time, but how does one do that? What do I want to be intentional about? And how do I design that intention into my life?
One of my favourite tools is called the Life Design Sweet Spot. It’s adapted from the Japanese concept of ikigai and I wrote about it in my book, Designing Your Second Act, forthcoming from Routledge in November 2026. I think it is one of the most practical tools anyone can use to make poiema possible in their own life.
Let me give you the example of Leislie. She took the Next Chapter Life Design workshop with me and she graciously allowed me to share her story.
Leislie loves dancing and going to concerts and museums. She joined a dance group through the pandemic and they danced at a school through the lockdowns but somewhere in the busyness of life, the dancing stopped. She wants to see if she can reignite the group because it’s something that she loves. Why wait for retirement to do something you know you love?
When Leislie and I worked through the Life Design Sweet Spot together, she already had clarity about how she wants to continue making a contribution during retirement. She has spent her career in higher education and has helped hundreds of students navigate university applications and graduate school. She loves helping students find their story so that their personal essay comes alive and their statement of purpose feels authentic. Leislie wants to keep coaching students and help make education more accessible, especially to the underrepresented.
What came alive in Leislie as we talked were the things that bring her joy. She loves learning and has always been curious about basket weaving and pottery. She wants to keep learning new things simply for the love of learning.
Another tool I introduce in Designing Your Second Act is called Start-Stop-Continue. For Leislie it maps beautifully. Continue: dancing, concerts, museums and supporting students in education. Stop: the hustle, the exhaustion, the relentless pace of full-time work. Start: the basket weaving, the pottery, the things she’s been curious about but never had the time to try.
Leislie isn’t drifting into retirement. She is crafting who she wants to be. She’s designing it, with intention.
That’s poiema. The time will go by either way. The question is whether we’ll take the opportunity to shape what it becomes.
This is why I believe retirement preparation isn’t something you do in the final year of your career. It’s something you start now, while you still have the runway to design it properly.
✍️ A question for you:
If you thought about your upcoming retirement as something you were crafting with intention, what would you start working on today?
If this reflection resonates, I share more thinking like this here and through my retirement coaching, writing, and speaking at nextchapterlifedesign.ca.
Tammy Martins is a retirement transition coach, speaker, and author of Designing Your Second Act, forthcoming from Routledge in November 2026. She helps professionals and executives design a purposeful and fulfilling life after work.
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