Claim OwnershipRetirement Talk for Boomers, Seniors, and Retirees
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© 2006
Description
Retirement Talk is an audio podcast intended to help people who are retired, or considering retirement, to examine their own lives. We will consider retirement in all its facets - not just financial. We want to examine our own lives and those of others, who seem to have looked closely, made choices, and are pretty happy with the consequences We want to encourage thought and action.
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Two weeks ago the wife of a good friend of mine died. She was 66: three years younger than myself. Cancer. Two months elapsed between diagnosis and death. Two months. Sort of puts an edge on things.
Retiring calls for learning to shift gears in a big way. We may make a few mistakes. We may grind a few gears as we adjust, but change we must. We know we want to move in another direction but we may not be aware of where or how. It is like sitting behind the wheel of that car when we were 15 knowing that we wanted to go somewhere but not knowing exactly where or how.
"If you take care of your feet your feet will take care of you". Whenever I say that my wife and my grandchildren roll their eyes. I usually don't say it around anyone else. Feet are something we do not talk about.
We retired people have one big advantage over others. We have been around the block. We have “seen it all before”. We do have some years behind us. We've seen many changes. We have a history. This movement from one crisis to another; one doomsayer's story after another has a numbing effect: the boy crying wolf effect.
Retirement offers us a chance to reignite the imagination concerning what we can do with our life. We are no longer young and we cannot aspire to some things that require a youthful body. But other than that we are free to explore to our hearts delight
Retirement affords us a special time in life when we can pick and choose how we spend our time. One could do worse than making movies a big part of retirement. Music, dance, visual art and drama all come together. I'm constantly amazed.
One time after a snowstorm I went with him to brush the snow off the wings of one of his planes. Under the snow the wings were covered in fur. He was trying to see if fur would change the performance of the plane. He made a profession of poking life.
Brenda and I had careers that were mental not physical. We worked mostly with our minds. We were teachers. When we retired one of our delights was to build things with our hands. We wanted to be able to see the results of what we did. Household projects have filled this role to a T.
I know: money is important. But is it the only thing that is important? I recently read a study of happiness as it relates to money. Retired folks might want to give this some thought.
I don't want to have any regrets. It takes a certain amount of forward thinking to conclude this. It also takes a certain amount of courage to realize it. Maybe the young man in the coffee shop did the math concerning one thousand months.
We have to learn to be kind, gentle, and compassionate. We are not born possessing these qualities. This thought has been like a brain worm of late. I can't get theme out of my mind. These three qualities would look good on a grave stone.
We don't have to have the biggest house, farm, car or anything else. They may not be the most desirable. As a matter of fact; in many instances small is much better - if not beautiful.
We retired folks have a perfect opportunity to talk to younger people. We have had a lifetime of experiences and education. We have been down many roads; made good choices and bad. We just need to learn how to tell a good story - with a point.
No matter what is scheduled, we go to coffee. It is a social hour for us. When we retired and relocated we took into consideration the distance to restaurants, grocery stores, drug store, book shops and of course, coffee shops. We wanted to be able to walk to all of them. We can, and we do.
Malcom Gladwell, writer for the New Yorker magazine, recently wrote a book where he suggested that if you do anything for 10 thousand hours you can be successful at it. I'm living proof that there are exceptions.
In a recent email to Retirement Talk, John from McLean, Virginia wondered if I could talk a bit about Tai Chi. He exercises regularly, is close to retirement age and feel a bit tense at his work. He wanted to know if I thought Tai Chi might be worked into a routine that might help him.
Maybe the existentialists had it wrong. The real life of the absurd would be if we were to live forever. The idea of accepting our own death is a comforting step to take. It relieves us of youthful misconceptions and philosophical rationalizations that are not as substantial as they earlier seemed.
Modern life demands mobility for education and employment. The family is uprooted. The extended family is a casualty. It all seems pretty academic until it happens to you. Suddenly, one day, it all becomes very personal. What to do?
This is one of the greatest things about retirement. When we are working at going to school or going to work our lives are pretty well filled up. We don't have time or energy to really consider some of the basics of our lives.
Thoughts about increasing demands on our social security system brought a former vision of mine to the surface. Human Touch was the title of my Master’s thesis work. I wrote up a proposal to the State of Alaska for the creation of a program that would benefit seniors, students and society.
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Del, have been listening for over 3 years. Thanks for all you do, love the podcasts. you are very inspirational. ron