I was recently introduced to a couple of friends, Greg and Joy who are about to retire shortly. This post has been inspired by the brief chat that I had with Greg on the subject and it is dedicated to Joy. Joy, Greg will need a lot of you after retirement.
“Retirement, a time to enjoy life! A time to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, how you want to do it.” – Catherine Pulsifer.
That is one way of looking at retirement. Another, more realistic way is this.
My life’s ambition was to retire at fifty and laze around.
Number one reality, I simply could not. I could do so when I was 52. So, I set about planning for the financial side of it by trying to encash my unproductive assets into productive ones so that I can laze around.
Number two reality. Man proposes and God disposes. Someone came into my life and made an offer that I could not refuse. Yes somewhat like being able to avoid the financial rejig. So, back to work I went for another thirty months and retired again. This time to really just lie around and laze around generally enjoying life and putting on weight.
Number three reality. Another someone came along and made another offer that I could not refuse and I went back to work for a year. This time when I retired, it was for good as matters at home became unmanageable and I had to take charge. Since then, except for a six month revisit to implement second phase of the project that I had started, I have been in retirement from a nine to five routine but far from being able to live the way Catherine Pulsifer thinks retired people should.
So, Greg, I hope that you are reading this. Be prepared to meet with unexpected demands from totally strange developments in your life. They will come your way and when they do, just remember this GOM’s prediction. Catherine’s kind of retirement may happen, and if it does you can be like this:
In my case, the grey hair and no hair have sort of kept pace with each other too!
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