Retirement Talk for Boomers, Seniors, and Retirees

When it comes to retirement and getting around, the best answer seems to be choosing where you live carefully. If you can walk and find everything you might need or want the problem of getting around can disappear – along with your car.

How long does it take to shave? Five minutes – maybe ten. Not longer. This morning while walking to a health club my wife noted that I had not shaved for a few days. “I haven’t had time to shave," I responded.

Here I am, retired, no child in our society. Casinos and gambling are very much part of our culture; yet I find them beyond understanding. For many of the retired gambling is part of their life. Why?

All the murders, yet no one advocates for gun control in this country, at least not gun control as I came to understand it on that African plain many years ago. Here is my story of what constitutes real gun control.

There is something about unconditional love. It isn't easy to find. But that is what a dog gives to a person. It can be a great boon to retirement.

Eternal quote: The older generation really messed up this world. When we get older, when we get some younger people elected to office, we will straighten things out. We will leave this a much better world than we found.

I especially want to encourage anyone fairly new to this podcast to go back through the archives to the very earliest episodes to find thoughts on considering retirement that were in my mind shortly after I retired. Enjoy.

According to a recently published book on retirement loneliness is a major problem. When our work life ends many of us have a hard time adjusting to a role where we are not required to socialize with others. We retreat.

We are always on the road to dying. It can come quickly and quite unexpectedly. We may have escaped death once, twice, or perhaps several times. If we are lucky Retirement becomes a possibility.

We retired people really want the same thing we have always wanted. We want to affirm ourselves in our daily lives. We want to have a way of self-actualization. We want to matter. We want to be able to choose.

This age of technology - it isn’t easy for some of us –. It requires that we learn something new constantly. That is, if we wish to keep up with the world around us.

Love trips. Yes, that’s right. Love trips. It refers to those trips like we retired folks take to see either our children, grandchildren, or our parents – people we love. If those trips involve airplanes it looks like they may soon end. Or at least they should.

Maybe we just need to establish a few hours each day for no worries; sort of a no worry zone. Or perhaps it would be better yet to just establish an hour a day to worry and then have the rest of the day to enjoy life.

“A sandwich board? You spent the weekend as a sandwich board?” My friend proclaimed his support for “Pro Choice” as a sandwich board. Roy earned a BA from Harvard and a PHD from the University of Chicago. Now he’s a sandwich board.

Where do you start when planning your own funeral? Why should you start? Funerals are for the living and perhaps the entire process should be left to them. But it does seem like some of the deceased wishes might be included.

The importance of priorities hasn't changed much from when we were young children chasing after kitchen cupboards and electrical outlets. We just change direction a bit. It is the direction that must be kept in mind. We need to know what we really value.

So here is my rant about alarms, alarm clocks, and the news. I don’t mean to pontificate – I just wanted to rant and think about these things.

As a retired person I might fill much of my time with weather and news. But, I can’t imagine anything less enjoyable. I’ve always wanted to enjoy life as much as possible.

As we grow older all family ties seem to be ever more valuable. The desire for family ties grows stronger each day. There is something about blood. We want a chance to sit down with our own son and daughter, and share in their lives and the lives of the grandchildren.

We heard about this place on the Internet where one could participate in a home exchange network. You agree to trade the use of your residence for that of someone else’s. The trade is cash free. No charge to members.

Several years have passed and regrets of losing my wallet are gone. But the memory of an elderly woman in black moving every so slowly along the water's edge remains as if etched in stone.

I pleaded the case for history. I argued that only by studying the successes and failures of the past can we hope to rise above the past and avoid the pitfalls that have entrapped our ancestors. I used the old map analogy.

Remember that movie in the 60s:The Flim Flam Man. What I recall is his basic philosophy that you can’t cheat an honest man. He always thought that the way you take advantage of someone is if they think they are getting a good deal. Like they think they are beating system also. That opens them up.

There seem to be so many advantages of aging that I don’t know where to start. But one that jumped out to me as most important was the ability to be a better judge of character.

"It is pancreatic cancer" a doctor recently told a fellow watercolorist who is an email friend of my wife. "One year" followed the announcement of pancreatic cancer: one year. How would it feel to get that kind of prognosis? It can happen. It can happen tomorrow.