Headed For The East Coast Man

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Retirement - Your Turn To Graduate Again!

I never had any trouble retiring.

I remember noticing that my pension would be maximized and if I continued with my career I could only make the equivalent of the deposits on eighteen pop cans more, than if I continued to work for a paycheck! Heck, I thought, that's a morning at the beach with a pair of rubber gloves.

I had hobbies I wanted to pursue and for once I wanted to be the one in charge of what I did each day. For thirty-eight years, like Pavlovs' dogs, I had responded to a bell. Ring, start work, ring, stop for lunch, ring, time to go home. The choice was an easy one. It took all of thirty seconds.

Don't get me wrong, I had a very enjoyable and challenging career that I wouldn't have swapped, but as retirement day got closer, I became aware of other retirees in training and the confusion that was creeping into their lives.

But this is where it gets interesting. I still can't understand why some retirees have so much of a problem, not working. Admittedly some have money difficulties, either because there was no pension of any sort or there was a failure to save for the future. Sometimes a family catastrophe or ill-health has forced the issue. Whatever the reason, I believe you have to have the correct approach, and a plan, if retirement is to work for you.

Most of all, however, is the approach. As in so many things in life it's more in the way you approach the problem than the actual problem itself.

Try and look at retirement as a second High School graduation. We all wanted to leave High School and move on. We all planned what we would do and some even had jobs or education establishments to move into. None of us planned to go back. We wanted a new beginning, a new life. We wanted to experience life and grow up. I don't recall any of my friends saying, "Geez this is boring I wish I could go back to High School!"

Take the same outlook on retirement. Plan before you jump. Look at it as a new era of your life, an opportunity for a new beginning, an opportunity to change direction, take up new things, live a more exciting existence.

Retirement should be our elder college graduation, and I for one don't want to go back. Actually I'm not really a good example because after my High School Graduation I spent a few years in University and then went back to High School as a teacher.

Poor example really.

Well, you get the idea anyway, don't you?

Us retired people can handle stuff like that.

Dave is a retired person who has built three profitable websites using "Sitesell".
If you're looking for a SUCCESSFUL online business or a way to make some extra money on the Internet for your retirement, check out http://www.Rose-Works.com/about-us.html

Retired people like us, have to help each other out!

A truck driver turns the pages of his bible at a truck stop in San Antonio, Texas May 11, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica RinaldiAP - The oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, a 4th century version that had its Gospels and epistles spread across the world, is being made whole again - online.