Topic · 47 posts
Honest, hopeful answers to the questions retirees are asking.
Note to reader: As you’ve probably guessed, I’m making these blog posts into a book. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. For now, what follows is my draft of the last chapter. Thoughts? But You Haven’t Said Anything about Retirement. No, I haven’t. Well, actually I did. Because if walking is a metaphor…
“What’s next?” The question came from a podcaster who was interviewing me about my seminal book on retirement. “Well, I’m not sure” was my answer. “Seven years in, I’ve fulfilled many of those initial dreams. The house is built; the books are written; I’ve taken new hikes, traveled to new places, reconnected with friends and…
So evidently my book is a gift. At least that’s what Amazon is telling me. Customers who buy 1001 Fun Things To Do in Retirement are not looking for a retirement book. They’re looking for a retirement gift. And not just any gift will do. They want something fun. As did I. Ironic, huh?…
“But I don’t plan to retire.” My friends words were typical of what I hear when others learn of my book. I think my response surprised him. Him: “But I don’t plan to retire.” Me: “Neither do I.” Him: “But you did!” Me: “Not really.” Him: “Yeah” (said with heavy sarcasm), “so that’s why you…
Well, it happened. I got my first negative review on Amazon. Came from a guy named The Darkside. Yep, a little spooky. Didn’t know whether to purchase a lightsaber or string garlic around my computer. Anyway, Darkside’s critique was insightful. Evidently, I “started off good,” but “dragged on with little substance especially for a gen…
Yes, you can write your way to a happy retirement. I know, not because I read it somewhere, but because I lived it. More correctly, I am living it. You see The Best Is Yet To Be began with journals or blogs, like this one. Those of you who have read my book know how…
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Talked with a marketing guy today who wanted to know how my book is different from all the others on retirement. First of all, I told him, mine is not different from all of them, just most of them. Most authors seem to believe the modern retirement crisis is caused by lack of money. I…
“But isn’t that the point?” My friend was responding to my reply to her question. She wanted to know if I was enjoying retirement, and I answered that I didn’t like the inactivity. “But isn’t that the point?” In the conversation to follow, her assumption was that one works hard for 40 or 50 years…
Dr. Nancy Schlossberg called it “the mattering test.” In Revitalizing Retirement, she wrote, “Leading a successful retirement is about much more than money. It’s about feeling you matter, that you are and will be noticed and appreciated.” A psychologist who has written for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Schlossberg said if you…
A shoe string, an old phone charger cord and a bungee cord—that’s what it took to repair the shredded splash shield (protects the engine from underneath) on my Toyota Camry. Don’t laugh. It got us from Flagstaff, Arizona to the dealership in Reno, Nevada. Improvising, according to Webster, is “producing or making something from whatever…
I see aspen trees as a fitting symbol for the retirement years. Last week, I asked the book cover guy if he could include them in his design. Why aspen? 1. On my favorite hikes, one finds aspen high on the mountain. Reach them, and the peaks (read “dreams we have spent a lifetime chasing”)…
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You can copyright books but not book titles. So, theoretically, I could title my book To Kill a Mockingbird, or Gone with the Wind. And I would get exactly 0 readers. But titles do make a difference. Research shows that good ones get a second look. A reader might peer at the promotional copy on…
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According to Geoff Godbey, a sociology professor at Pennsylvania State University, “At the end of your life, what you’ve done with your leisure may be more important than what you’ve done at work.” To that end, researchers have written entire books on the subject (Stella Rheingold’s “101 Fun Things To Do in Retirement”); others (Dorothy…
Current research strongly condemns equating retirement with leisure. Marika and Howard Stone say that since many of us can expect to live another 20 or 30 healthy years, we are “Too Young to Retire” (the name of their bestselling book): Mary Catherine Bateson (“Composing a Further Life”) is more blunt: Extended lifespans contain “far too…
Just got back from a couple of days in Santa Fe and am thinking about leisure, which I guess describes what one does in Santa Fe. Seems that a change of location is sometimes necessary. Maybe because the workplace (right now that would be my office) reminds me of, well, work. Which is why, during…
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The “neutral zone,” according to transition expert William Bridges, is where I’ve been living for the last 229 days. It’s the period between an ending (my days as AC) and a beginning (the new dream, as yet not clearly defined). Bridges says the neutral zone is the “most tortured” and “treacherous” part of retirement. He…
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So I’m over 200 days in and it turns out retirement is not a destination but a transition. Which, according to William Bridges (“Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes”), means it contains not only an ending but a beginning. In fact, the former is necessary for the latter. “It is, after all, the ending that…
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Don’t build a new home the same year you retire. Never. In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a stress scale to determine how likely people were to become ill because of traumatic life events (for instance, they gave death of a spouse 100 stress points, divorce, 73 points; getting married was a…
This will be the last of these for a while. The blog, I mean. When we moved into the new home a couple of nights ago, we completed the first leg of this journey called retirement. What began euphorically with a great send-off from students and colleagues, quickly turned hard with the death of our…
Have you noticed Hollywood’s recent movies about wise, older types who mentor younger people in need of guidance? Think of Sylvester Stallone in “Creed” or Harrison Ford in “The Force Awakens,” or Robert DeNiro as “The Intern.” Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Encore.org, says it’s a case of “art imitating life.” He points to…
Retirement Myth #9: Our happiest years are behind us. Not so, says Neilsen, the folks who rate TV viewership. “There is scientific evidence that people get happier as they get older.” The marketing data company points to a May 2016 survey, which measured self-reported wellbeing among American adults. On a scale of 1 to 10,…
In “The Evolution of Retirement, 1880-1990,” Dora Costa argues that increased income and poor health are no longer the reasons why American men retire. They used to be. Costa traces the beginning of large-scale retirement in the U.S. to Union Army veterans, who were given pensions by a nation grateful for their sacrifices in the…
In February, 1962 Marine Colonel John Glenn circled the Earth three times in a NASA craft dubbed Friendship 7. In October, 1998, now a U.S. senator, Glenn returned to space as a payload specialist aboard the shuttle Discovery. At 77, he was the oldest human to venture outside the atmosphere. It’s a trend I’ve noticed…
Retirement Myth #7: Retired people are a drain on the economy. I suppose this myth gets perpetuated because of all the reporting on Medicare costs: 618 billion in 2015, 17% of GNP. And while today’s seniors profit from the expenditure, they, alone, certainly didn’t create it. But what about income and wealth, both of which…
Retirement Myth #6: Retired people are not as mentally sharp as young people. While it is true that young people have sharper vision, better hearing, quicker reaction times and better short-term memory than seniors, Dr. Rowe says we can compensate for all of these. The lead doctor in the MacArthur Foundation study on aging goes…
Retirement Myth #5: You’re ready to retire when you know your number. Most of the retirement books I’ve read agree with this statement; however, they rarely agree with each other on just what that number is. One says, before you retire, you need 80% of your annual, preretirement income; another advocates 115% (all that traveling).…
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I’m nowhere near stopping—these blogs I mean. I told you at the first I was going to take you along for the first 60 days or so of my retirement. That was (you guessed it) 60 days ago. I thought that was how long it would take to research the subject and come up with…
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Just got off the phone with a child who was trying to visit with his dad while driving in rush-hour traffic. In Houston. Yep, he had to drop the call. Some activities are mutually exclusive. To do one well you must stop doing the other. I’ve always had trouble with that—letting go of something (checking…
Retirement Myth #4: Physical fitness is less helpful (and possible) as we age. While leaving the Washington Hilton Hotel, on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest by would-be-assassin John Hinckley Jr. Quick medical attention saved Reagan’s life. About eight months later, I watched on TV as he talked to reporters…
Retirement Myth #3: If you’re not healthy when you retire, there’s little you can do about it. “Nature is remarkably forgiving,” writes Dr. John Rowe (Successful Aging). “Research shows that it is almost never too late to begin healthy habits such as smoking cessation, sensible diet, exercise, and the like.” Rowe goes on to say…
Retirement Myth #2: Retirees won’t be as happy if they work. If you’d asked me 20 years ago, I would have agreed with this myth. Isn’t that what retirement is? Not working. But the statement defines work too narrowly. It doesn’t include regular chores (like housework or lawn care) which studies show nine of 10…
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Retirement Myth #1: Most retirees eventually end up in nursing homes. Not so, says Dr. John Rowe, past president of Mt. Sinai NY Hospital and current professor at Columbia. “Only 5% of people over the age of 65 live in nursing homes, and that percentage has been falling for at least 10 years.” Rowe says…
Retired Husband Syndrome—the term was coined in 1984 by Dr. Charles Clifford, who, writing in the Western Journal of Medicine, described wives of the newly retired who said things like “I’m going nuts” and “he’s under my feet all the time.” Clifford said these women reported “headaches, depression, agitation, palpitations and lack of sleep.” Evidently,…
After being in the carpet trade for nearly 50 years (as a salesman and owner), Earl Glenn retired in 2005 at the age of 73. “I had prostate cancer,” he told me. “It seemed the best thing to do.” Three years later, the owner of his former business lured Earl back with promises of half-day…
It’s been 50 days since I closed my office door in Ordway Hall for the last time, and I have some observations: One, the best of retirement is better than expected. Has to do with seeing dreams (creations) take shape in front of me. I’ve actually jumped up and down like a child, giddy with…
I scored highest on Zimbardo’s future time perspective. According to him, futures are planners, keep to-do lists and balance their checkbooks (yep, that’s me). We exercise regularly and are more likely to get yearly medical checkups. Because we sacrifice present gratification for future reward, we succeed academically. Most importantly, futures are hopeful (that’s why we…
The way you view your past will affect your present and your future. So say Stanford psychologists Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd in “The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life.” According to the authors, people who are past-positive (who focus on the good things of the past) are more…
Google “retirement crisis” and you’ll come up with roughly 2.7 million hits—enough to say, yes, there is a crisis facing the majority of us newly retired types. I’ve clicked around, and the majority of Google’s links (maybe 99%) take you to articles that talk about money. Seems we haven’t saved nearly enough of it. Duh.…
“During most of human history only one in ten people lived to the age of 65,” writes Gail Sheey (The New Passages”). “In contemporary America, eight in ten people sail past their sixty-fifth birthday.” Drs. John Rowe and Robert Kahn (“Successful Aging”) put it even more dramatically: “It is currently estimated that of all the…
Elder-escence—as in adolescence—it’s what I’ve decided to call these early days of retirement. But, first, this morning’s bike ride. Nothing like a good thunderstorm to wash off some of this West Texas dust and renew the prairie. Which is what I’m hoping elder-escence will do for my spirit. OK—a definition. Adolescence bridges the gap between…
Did you know Santa Fe was once part of Texas? Well, almost. In 1836 the new Republic of Texas claimed Santa Fe as part of its western border towns and soon sent a small military party to enforce the claim. This group was easily captured by the Mexican Army, putting an end to all hope…
Tom Sightings, author of You Only Retire Once, suggests that new retirees take a gap year before settling in a new place or vocation. It’s a practice of many young people who spend a year immediately after high school or college traveling, working, maybe volunteering somewhere (often overseas) to gain experience and perspective for the…
Fifteen days into retirement and I have some observations. One, I’m much busier than I would have thought had I made a prediction, say, a year ago. Selling a house and building one are time-consuming. Two, I’m doing things now—important things—that I would not have time for if still working full-time. Three, the two activities…
I expected it to be traumatic, even tearful, the moment we pulled the door shut on 2919 Mable for the last time. The reality was more earthy—two tired, sweaty bodies, relieved we got out before the new owners’ walk-through at 5:30. Talked about it as we drove away—how we had been leaving this place emotionally,…
Have spent the last several evenings sitting on the front porch of our unfinished home. We look out on a small canyon, which in the evenings is visited by occasional mule deer and wild turkey. It’s much quieter than town, but one can hear train whistles in the distance (always a comforting sound to me)…
Most retirement books are depressing. OK, it’s a first impression. I’ve made it through eight (I intend to read 20 or more and will give you a thorough report later). With titles like How to Retire with Enough Money and the AARP Retirement Survival Guide, most have the same premise. Money brings happiness, and you’ll…
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Did I tell you we’re building a house? So what would make a reserved, conservative couple—one who buys new cars only when the old ones are exhausted and who live in the same house they bought 35 years ago and paid off the mortgage on 10 years ago—what would make such a couple (closing in…