Retirement Talk for Boomers, Seniors, and Retirees

What kind of people live next door? We can live next to them for years and never know. Why is that? Sometimes we need to just reach out and extend a welcoming hand even if we have lived next to each other for years. We might be pleasantly surprised.

What do we remember? What can we pass along to our children, grandchildren and others? One thing about it: if we can't couch it in a story we might as well keep it to ourselves. Seems like the story is what it is all about.

We all fail at one time or another. It doesn't ever seem very pleasant. But we usually get more from it than we think. Sometimes it can result in resounding success. Failure is not something we must avoid at all costs.

What are you doing when you lose all sense of time? For some retirement is a time of indecision. We don't know what to do. What will bring us the most happiness?

Biking has become an integral part of my retirement life. Lots of people do it. Why is that? What does it add? Could it become part of my life? Should it?

Ever wonder how people can think that way? Why don't they all think like me? Thoughts like these are misleading if not always far from the mark. It holds true for reasons of retire and most other things in life.

Things go wrong. Sometimes we get so discouraged we just walk away. Other times some of us just stay with it. Right to the bitter end. Or until that which is wrong gets righted. Most of the time we can fix it.

We can never predict where retirement might take us any more than we could have predicted our life after leaving high school or college. The world changes around us and we had better "sit loose in the saddle".

Is there such a thing as a "retired state of mind"? Do we see life a bit different than other segments of the population? Is there something about retirement that tends to tie us together as a group? Experience tells me there is.

When problems arise it is always easy to lean back and yearn for the "good ol' days". It initiates an almost auto-acceptance as truth. Retired people have experiences which may reveal a different truth.

Sometimes we find ourselves living out a self-fulfilling prophecy. We hear about "Senior Moments" and think ours are on the increase. Perhaps we are only forgetting that forgetting is a way of life.

Retirement is often accompanied by assuming the role of caregiver. Life calls us to care for someone who needs attention. We had best be prepared physically and psychologically for this demanding and yet gratifying role.

It is easy to follow the group. It is not easy to do exactly as you want. It is not easy to create your own way in life. We learn to go along with the group as a child. Retirement gives us a chance to become our own person.

Sometimes we need a reminder to open our eyes. We need to be reminded to look at what is right in front of us. Some of us see everything around us and others only what is directly in our path. We need to be conscious of our world if we want to enjoy it.

Retirement brings forward many opportunities. One of the big possibilities is that we change the way we have been living for the way we have always wanted to live. We have choices. We may wish to continue in our friendly and familiar path or we may wish to turn and walk another road.

Our body takes a little more care as we move into the retirement years. We have to pay attention just a bit more. Moving our health care into the front of our mind pays - "If we take care of our feet our feet will take care of us," someone said.

Retired people have one big advantage over those who are younger. We have lived longer, seen more, and have a wealth of experiences. We have been warned that these were the worst of all times often. What can we make of that?

Sometimes we just don't know what to do. We have time, energy and all we need is direction. Time seems to have deleted our ability to dream or imagine. We might gain by kicking back on a regular basis and letting our mind wander as we did as child. Dream big.

We could all use a little help throughout our lives. A special request from a listener prompted this topic. You can lend a hand here. It will help someone else and it will probably help you as well. A good thing to do whether you are retired or not.

Ever get the feeling that you may have skipped a few experiences in your younger life? One may be movies or the world of video. Now we have time to indulge that desire and fill up that hole. It just takes making a decision and then following through. Sometimes it is so easy and yet so satisfying.

Retirement offers us time to step up and out and into a new world. We can disturb the comfort zone of others and ourselves. We can engage in activity where we always have felt limited.

Retirement brings us time to do things we never did, or never did well enough or long enough, when work interfered. Now we can explore. Working with our hands or minds during a lifetime of work can now be reversed if we choose.

Ever go looking in book stores for something on retirement? Find anything other than material on retirement and money? Me either. Is it possible that there are things that matter to the retired other than money? I think so.

Good habits are not easily established. But once in place they serve us well. When my work life would not allow it going to a coffee shop on a regular basis is something of which I dreamed. Retirement afforded me the opportunity to fulfill that dream and I leaped.

What we are doing with our life comes into very clear focus when we retire. We no longer have school or a job dictating to us. We can choose. It does require that we make a conscious effort with our mind as to what we do with our limited time. And that limited time is getting shorter all the while.