Carving Guilt!!! %$&*#!!!!?

How many woodcarvers "complain" about not having enough time to spend carving.  I hear it all the time.  It used to be from the younger carvers who have not yet retired.  This makes a lot of sense.  It does take time to provide the necessities required to raise a family.  But, more and more I am hearing this from folks who are older and have retired.  It's easy to understand.  If one is not careful, one may begin to back off from kicking back and spending some quality time carving.  Even when retired, it's too easy to say, "I got too much to do to spend time just sittin and carving".  I almost feel into that trap, just today.  I started the morning out by stropping my pocketknife,  getting a block of wood,  sawing a blank,  brewing a quality mug of coffee, and sittin in the shop.  Soon, my thoughts moved from whittling to all that I could or should be doing.  I started feeling guilty.  That feeling passed as soon as I took stock of myself and where I was in this world.  My thoughts went like this:

1.  I'm 77 years old
2.  I've been married to the same wonderful woman for 54 years
3.  I've got two grown daughters on their own with families and quite successful
4.  For the first ten years of marriage I mostly worked two jobs.
5.  I retired at 50.
6.  Helped start a viable company.
7.  Am reasonably healthy,  but still have all he ailments of most people my age.
8.  I have some good friends that will help me when needed.
9.  Any day of the month I can write and cash a check for $100 and not worry.

I, like so many of my generation worked hard, and made sacrifices to get where we are today.
After these realities became apparent, the thought of guilt because I was just sittin and whittlin vanished.     My wife likes to say;"life is too short to read poor books".  I say life is too short to worry bout all the things you should be doin .  In my case I should be whittling.