Good morning, everyone. This week I’m speaking at OLLI in Lubbock, so some new faces may wander in here over the next few days. If that’s you, welcome. You don’t need to have anything figured out to be here. Most of us are somewhere in the middle of this change, and that’s the point of this place. Here’s this week’s question, for longtime members and brand-new ones alike: What is one small thing you’d like to do this week, just for you? Keep it small. A walk you’ve been meaning to take. Calling an old friend. Clearing off one shelf. Signing up for a class you keep thinking about. Small is what actually gets done. If you’re new, it would be great if you’d also tell us: 1. Your first name and where you’re from 2. Whether you’re getting close to retirement, newly retired, or a few years in Drop your answer in the comments. I read every one, and I’ll check back later this week. Have a great week! Matt

If you’re new here, maybe from a recent talk, welcome. I’m glad you came. This is a small, free community for people working through the part of retirement nobody plans for: the empty Tuesday, the friends who were mostly work friends, the strange feeling of having everything you planned for and still feeling a little lost. I’ll be honest: this group went quiet for a while this fall. I’ve been out giving talks, and I let the weekly posts slide. So consider this a fresh start. Most Mondays I’ll post one question. You can answer in a sentence, or just read. Both are fine. To begin, one small thing: reply below and tell us which part of a working day you miss most. Mine is having built-in friendships. Glad you’re here, Matt

Good Monday. Every Monday I ask one small question here. No homework, no wrong answers, and a one-line reply is a complete answer. This week: what's one thing on your calendar that you're actually looking forward to? Not something you have to do. Not an appointment or an errand. One thing you'd be a little disappointed to miss. And if the honest answer is nothing, say nothing. That's a real answer, it's more common than people admit, and noticing it is worth more than pretending otherwise. I'll go first: I am meeting good friends for dinner on. Looking forward to catching up with them. Let us know what's on your mind! Matt

Good Monday morning, everybody. Here is something I have been thinking about, and I want to know if it lands for you. For most of your working life, somebody handed you something new to learn whether you asked for it or not. A new charting system. A new set of regulations. A new machine, a new curriculum, a new boss with new expectations. You groaned about half of it. You learned it anyway, because you had to, and because people were counting on you to know it by Thursday. Then you retire, and that stops. Completely. No one is going to email you a new protocol. Nobody is going to require anything of your brain ever again. And the strange part is that it does not feel like a loss at first. It feels like relief. It can take a good while before you notice that the last genuinely new thing you learned was something you were made to learn, back when you still had a badge. I am not saying you need to go sign up for a class. Please do not go sign up for a class on my account. I just think this one is worth noticing, because it is quiet. It does not announce itself the way an empty calendar does. So here is the check-in question for the week. What is the last thing you learned that nobody required you to learn? It does not have to be impressive. A recipe counts. Figuring out the settings on a camera counts. A name of a bird you kept seeing in the yard counts. And "I honestly cannot remember" is a real answer too, and probably the most useful one in the whole thread. I will go first in the comments.

If you haven't poked around the Resources and Tools section of the classroom yet, this week's a good time to take a look. There are videos, research summaries, and a few PDF handouts already in there, things you can actually use, not just read and forget. More is going up in the coming weeks, so consider this the first layer, not the whole shelf. No pressure to work through all of it at once. Grab whatever's useful for where you are right now and leave the rest for later. Before the end of the weekend, drop a comment with your one small step for this week, whatever that looks like for you right now. Doesn't have to be big. Just one thing. Have a good weekend. Retire Well. Live Fully.