| Free Time |
October 18, 2017
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| He wanted to do what he had never done before. He retired from his job recently. He had been preparing for the day. He had read in a book that many retired people had a hard time busying themselves after retiring, so one should start many hobbies as early as possible before retiring. So he had started some new hobbies when he was 55, five years ago. He started fishing, playing the guitar, pottery and poetry, and playing tennis. And, when the day of retirement came, he realized that he was already bored with these things. He was upset, but he wasn't very upset. He had time. This was a good thing to think what he should do in his second life thoroughly. So he started to make a 'Haven't Done List'. He thought that he should do what he hadn't done before. He traveled abroad several times so he wrote 'traveling abroad' and then crossed it out. He crossed out 'restaurant' and 'wine', although he only experienced cheap ones, he wasn't curious about those. He crossed out almost all of the main sports. Thanks  to physical education classes or club activities in school, he played 'soccer', 'baseball', 'basketball', 'volleyball', 'ping pone', 'tennis', 'judo', 'karate'(little bit), and 'ski' and 'skate'. He never experienced 'bungee-jump', 'skydiving', and 'paragliding', but he hated heights so he crossed them out. He also hated 'scuba diving' being worried about if there was enough oxygen in the tank. He played 'guitar' when he was young, 'harmonica', 'ocarina', 'castanet', 'piano' (once) when he was a kid. He danced 'folk dance' while at school. He learned 'ballroom dancing' when he was young. He 'played' in the school performance. He 'wrote stories' in writing class. He 'launched a rocket' in the school yard. He 'rowed a boat' in a pond. He 'deciphered a code' which his friends made. He won the lottery (50 dollars). He did various things as part time jobs when he was a college student, working in building construction sites, assembling machines, selling sausages in a supermarket, handing flyers in the street, even asking questionnaires. He crossed those out. He grew vegetables while helping his mother. He cooked. He baked. He taught. He delivered. He drove. He generated electricity. He made a radio. To come to think of it, he did a lot of things. Of course, there were some things that require a special license, like a doctor, a pilot, a lawyer. He did a dissection of frogs and fish in science class. Of course, he can't be pregnant. It seemed to be very difficult to find things that he had never done before. He got an idea. He didn't kill anybody, he even didn't hurt anybody, just fought with his friends when he was a kid or fought when he was drunk. He had never been arrested. He was only charged for some traffic violations. He had never stayed in jail. He had never been handcuffed. "So, if I hurt somebody, I would be arrested and then be tossed in jail. So maybe three things that I've never done could be done at the same time." He also had never been executed, of course. He remembered another thing that he hadn't done. Committing suicide. When he thought about this, he realized that he was only thinking dark thoughts. "Maybe this is because I'm retired. When I was working, I worked for the company. I worked for my salary but at the same time I wanted our company to be more profitable, other workers happier. I wanted to make a good relationship with the bosses, I wanted to make more consumer friendly products. Now I'm just thinking how I should enjoy the rest of my life." He remembered that there remained one thing that he had never done before. He had heard that there were a few people who volunteered in his community. Cleaning parks, watching out for criminals like thieves, keeping traffic safety for kids, taking care of elderly people, asking residents to avoid extreme colors for their house walls, working various types of events to help residents get along well with each other, etc., etc. The volunteers were always very hard at work, and he always had an excuse not to volunteer because of his busy job. Maybe it is a good time to think about volunteering, he thought. |
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*decipher :ΓππΗ·ι
*dissection :πU
*execute :Y·ι