Blind Spots To Prevent When Choosing Between Cape Town Retirement Villages
One cannot choose between Cape Town retirement villages on the basis of superficial emotions, because in this phase of life there is just no time to waste on bad or mediocre decisions.
You should really know yourself when stepping into retirement. If you have sidestepped your soul right through your life whilst working, looking after children, climbing society’s ladder etc., retirement could really become painful with a superficial choice of a Cape Town retirement village.
It is possible to bypass the essence of what your soul requires right through life, but in retirement it finally wants to be at home in your body. As Thomas said a long time ago, “that which you carry within you will save you… if you listen to it. If you don’t listen to what you carry within you, it will kill you”.
A superficial choice of a retirement village based on emotion will have detrimental effects on your retirement lifestyle and can leave an adult in the most important phase of his or her life with a cancerous spread of emptiness.
When one heads into retirement and has to decide whether and where you want to live in a retirement village in Cape Town, it should be based on something more substantial than the thought of a holiday without end. For sure there will be ample time to play golf, gym, shop, have coffee with friends, going on extended holidays locally and internationally etc.
But eventually one will have to face up to the person looking back at you from the mirror that will be asking a question that cuts to the bone, “Is this it? Will this be all to the end of my life?”.
Retirement should be a time of heightened creativity, contemplation, compassion, healthy living, ploughing wisdom and knowledge back into the fabric of society. A refinery of soul life. Cape Town retirement villages should thus be chosen so that one can live such a life.
If your soul leads you to a deepened existence with books of substance, don’t go living on a golf estate. If your soul pleads with you to take care of broken children, don’t try daily tea and cake sessions in coffee shops. If your soul wants to put a canvass and a paint brush in front of you, do not watch endlessly mediocre TV programs.
The choice of a retirement village in Cape Town must reflect a scaling out of unnecessary material things and superficial encounters so that the soul can come to life again to fill up the vast emptiness with resonating meaning. It will take time to find your own retirement destiny, but then, you will have time to go looking for it. Go down to the ocean and let the sea flow into your veins. Go to the mountains so that the fresh winds could stroke your hair and yearnings.
And then when you eventually come back with a road map of your soul engrained in your being, choose wisely. The ambience of a retirement village, whether it be Waterkloof Estate in Somerset West or Honeydew Retirement Estate in Paarl, should touch your soul if you really want to be contented with the culmination of a well rounded life.
Choose your retirement home so that the living there could be joyful. Lots of sun, room for all your soul chosen activities, an open plan lifestyle to ensure contact and communication between partners, a private outside entertainment area to entertain friends and family, a garage that leads directly into your home, a bathroom that leaves room for comfortable bathing and showering and possibly a TV in the bedroom too in order to satisfy both sport lovers and crime analyst viewers…
Choose your retirement village for its security, provision of good health care (these days specially home care too), a friendly and inviting social facility that offers a classy restaurant or dining room, library, ladies bar, swimming pool, a gym, luscious gardens, beautiful scenery etc.
Choose your retirement village for its location near facilities that you need to feed your soul with. If the ocean does that for you, it must not be further than a quarter of an hour’s drive away from your retirement home. If you love to visit wine farms and restaurants offering exceptional food, make sure that you have easy access. If a good movie, live theatre or book shops move your soul, you and your partner/friends will have to get there without too much hassle. If you want to get involved with organizations that take care of street children, abused women or stray animals, make your stand in a retirement village accordingly. Don’t get isolated. There are people out there that will be in need of your empathy and care. That includes your own children and grandchildren.
If you’re dreaming of one of those popular retirement villages in Cape Town, remember to prepare well. Financially, but even more so to make it an emotionally meaningful experience of existence as it will either destroy the soul or it could be the most fulfilling time of your life.
The choice is yours.
