Between the Olive Trees
On pruning, stillness, and the question nobody in retirement is asking
I’ve been spending a lot of time among the olive trees lately.
Pruning scissors in hand, moving slowly from branch to branch. It’s quiet work. Meditative. You take a branch away here, open up the light there, and try to imagine the shape of the tree a few years from now that you’re after. Sometimes I climb right up into the trees like a monkey.
It occurred to me the other day that this is exactly what I’m doing with everything else in my life right now - pruning, clarifying, preparing the ground for what’s coming.
And in that peaceful moment, between one snip and the next, a question surfaced.
Most of the time, am I actually living - or just keeping busy?
Monkey mind again, but there was something to this question that I liked.
Pruning the olives gave me the focus, care, attention and physicality that made me feel alive. Thinking about you reading these words makes this work makes me feel alive too. Maybe that’s the answer right there.
I found it an interesting question to ponder on.
Most of the time, am I actually living - or just keeping busy?
What is it that makes me feel alive?
It sounds simple. It isn’t.
I’ve been noticing it in the people all around me, and in myself too.
And especially with retirement, and my project VIBRANT ELDERHOOD, stepping away from work, there arrives a kind of promise.
Freedom. Space.
Time is finally your own.
Am I actually living - or just keeping busy?
And then the diary fills up again.
Gym classes, committees, volunteering, language lessons, grandchildren, gym memberships. Always something on. Always somewhere to be……
And there’s nothing wrong with any of it.
Except - when I talk to people one to one, really talk to them - there’s often something else there underneath all the activity.
A kind of hollowness. Like they’re filling the hours beautifully, but something essential is still missing.
When every hour is accounted for, life starts to feel like work again. Same structure, same obligations, same sense of having to be somewhere - just without the salary.
The opposite is also true: refusing to take on engagements in retirement and then finding yourself bored.
I put a video out today exploring exactly this. Not with answers - with a question. The one I kept asking myself between the olive trees.
Are you really living? Or just filling time?
I’d love to know what thoughts this brings up for you.
For now you can watch today’s video here:
If any of this is landing for you — or if you know someone navigating this particular crossing - this is my full three-month coaching offer. Life after work can be a beautiful time. Sometimes it just needs a little tending.
anthonytrahair.com/private-coaching
Catch you again soon, and if you feel like it please send me some love in the YouTube comments!
Cheers,
Anthony
PS. The Giocosamente documentary, beautifully made by Sara Pozzoli, is back online from the 23rd of March. If you haven’t seen it yet, or want to see it again, or share it, it captures something of what all this work I’m offering is really about.