My Dancing 😀

But, seriously, when I think of details of my life, I like to think in terms of six pillars:

• Physical Health
• Mental Wellbeing
• Relationships
• Career
• Finances
• Spiritual

Being pretty much retired, I can lessen my attention to my career. Yet, I think it’s good to continue to learn and develop skills. It’s always possible that there could be some huge crises where retired people would be forced back to work. But even apart from that, I think of all the times that I wanted to dig deeper into some area of knowledge. I said to myself, “maybe I’ll focus on this when I retire”.

One of my current hobbies is to list every year and month of my life and gather information about it in terms of pictures, personal memories, news stories, current music, and TV and films. I want to relive my life from a safe distance 😀. And my work life is part of all that. I spent the earlier part of my life in the field of mechanical engineering and education. My first job was in Irish Dunlop in Cork. I was in full-time Christian work in the middle bit (1989-1998), and then I moved on to IT and IT education. I maintain an interest in all of these.

In spiritual terms, as I reflect on my life, and as I get started on my new hobby of getting to know every country in the world (largely by watching YouTube videos), I’d like to deepen my prayer life. In my own small way, I can have a positive effect on every country by praying for each one. When I was in college, I was surpised to hear my physics lecturer say that when you jump, the earth recoils. The effect is undetectable by any instrument, but it does have a little effect. I don’t know what effect my prayers will have on the world, but I believe that they will have some effect. And likewise, when I reflect on my whole life, lots of people come to mind, and I pray for them.

And I’d like to continue to study the Bible, theology and church history. I enjoy listening to debates. One thing I’d like to do is to give the opposing side a fairer hearing. I think now that when I was younger, I tended to think that my side were right about everything and the other side were wrong about everything. But I’d like my thinking to be a little bit more nuanced. For example, I might read an evangelical book about Roman Catholicism and a Roman Catholic book about evangelicalism. Though I’m an evangelical, I’d like to be able to notice good arguments in the Roman Catholic book and weak arguments in the evangelical book. It should not be a matter of two tribes going to war. It should be more about each side wanting to learn from one another. There mightn’t be much to learn from the opposing side, but surely they’ll make some points that are worth considering.

But of course, just as you can lazily adopt the position of one tribe without listening to the other, you can also dither, sit on the fence and make no decisions at all. Perhaps the happy medium is to make up your mind but always be open to revise your opinions.

When I look at the above list, I recoil from finances. I’m not rich, but I’ve never been in any financial difficulty. I don’t enjoy dealing with finances. I probably should spend more time looking at competitive car insurances rates etc. So that’s something that I could pay more attention to. You might have heard the expression “too heavenly minded to be of earthly use”. It’s not a complement, it’s an insult 😀. I suppose it would be nice to be more heavenly minded and also to be of more earthly use. We can easily become a bit too detached from the mundane aspects of life, which is why I like the 6 pillars. It’s good to ask ourselves what we’re neglecting. Looking at the New Testament, there’s obviously a major focus on our spiritual needs. I think of the following verse:

Mark 8:36
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

So, ultimately, it’s worth paying attention to our spiritual life.