Some of the best advice I've read (that's not financial) about retirement. Download this poster today and follow this important advice.
8 Habits of Successful Retirees
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Web Wandering - On Regrets - 08-02-2013
In retirement, I begin my days with breakfast and web wandering. It is a pleasure fraught with peril, for a person can get lost in the web's woods, so to speak, and end up circling for hours. Through that time, though, I find myself discovering links that I not only want to save but also share with others, because their ideas and expression provide fodder for deeper (and occasionally profound) insight.
Today I watched the video below, a TED talk by Kathryn Schulz, journalist and author of the book, Being Wrong. I found its insight into regret compelling and thought-provoking.
In particular, the end of the talk struck a chord with me. Here are Schulz's words:
Yes, regret is a reminder that we can do better. It's also a reminder that to make much of the time and opportunities we have before us, while we can.
Today I watched the video below, a TED talk by Kathryn Schulz, journalist and author of the book, Being Wrong. I found its insight into regret compelling and thought-provoking.
In particular, the end of the talk struck a chord with me. Here are Schulz's words:
If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly — it reminds us that we know we can do better.But what do we do, as elders, with the regrets we have about our lives? There's no Do-Over button (no CTRL-Z, as Schulz calls it), when we get to this age and stage of life. Many of those we've hurt have left this world; we cannot call them and offer our apologies.
Yes, regret is a reminder that we can do better. It's also a reminder that to make much of the time and opportunities we have before us, while we can.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Bookworms Have Better Brains in Old Age
mental_floss is reporting that those who have exercised their brains by reading, writing, and playing with puzzles appear to have fewer cognitive problems later in life.
According to a new study from the July issue of Neurology, readers and other mentally active folks have boosted brainpower in old age.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
The Nostalgia Project
Nostalgia appears to be a pastime for the retired. My retired brother and a retired friend have both been researching their ancestors and reviewing old photographs from childhood. I have received some rear-view mirror emails from my brother, with memories of events I can scarcely recall, myself, even though we shared a childhood. How boring nostalgia once seemed to me, as I listened to the seemingly endless stories of relatives when I was a child. The hardships of grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles, with their nuggets of well-earned wisdom seemed like burdens we children had to bear.
Since my retirement, I've been perusing old journals, scanning old photographs, and have even begun a genealogy project with my brother. We wanted to uncover the truth about a few unlikely ancestors and our heritage. That project has also uncovered some rather uncomfortable memories of our shared past. If nostalgia unsettles me, should I just let it go? Does reviewing one's past have any purpose whatsoever, beyond needling our youth?
Since my retirement, I've been perusing old journals, scanning old photographs, and have even begun a genealogy project with my brother. We wanted to uncover the truth about a few unlikely ancestors and our heritage. That project has also uncovered some rather uncomfortable memories of our shared past. If nostalgia unsettles me, should I just let it go? Does reviewing one's past have any purpose whatsoever, beyond needling our youth?
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Completing a Life: Thoughts on Oliver Sacks' Joy of Old Age
In the New York Times Sunday Review, Oliver Sacks writes of his upcoming 80th birthday. The piece is called "The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.)"
Sacks is looking forward to his next decade. For me, just beginning my retirement, such a zestful statement offers encouragement for the decades to come.
In this culture, which promotes youth and hides the aged, celebrating aging sparks an inquiry. What has the aging individual to anticipate with zest, a younger mind might ask? And Sacks answers that he's glad to be alive (or happy not to be dead, its pessimistic alternative). If that's the best that can be said, it's barely reassuring.
1. Waiting for the End
My father's father, a grandfather I could not have known since he died before my birth, succumbed suddenly from a heart attack at age 45. When the decade of his own forties commenced, my father expected to die the way one waits for a visitor, almost impatiently wondering at what hour she would arrive. From time to time, he would complain plaintively, like a child, that no one would care if he was gone. Of course the longed-for denials ensued, but he was not comforted. It took a change of scenery--to that mecca of the retired, Florida--before he abandoned his vigil for the grim reaper, and took up his life once again, regaining his youthful tennis prowess, with the trophies to prove it, well into his late sixties.
Rediscovering the passions of youth could be one way to move zestfully through our aging. Isn't that how retirement communities are sold?
Sacks is looking forward to his next decade. For me, just beginning my retirement, such a zestful statement offers encouragement for the decades to come.
In this culture, which promotes youth and hides the aged, celebrating aging sparks an inquiry. What has the aging individual to anticipate with zest, a younger mind might ask? And Sacks answers that he's glad to be alive (or happy not to be dead, its pessimistic alternative). If that's the best that can be said, it's barely reassuring.
1. Waiting for the End
My father's father, a grandfather I could not have known since he died before my birth, succumbed suddenly from a heart attack at age 45. When the decade of his own forties commenced, my father expected to die the way one waits for a visitor, almost impatiently wondering at what hour she would arrive. From time to time, he would complain plaintively, like a child, that no one would care if he was gone. Of course the longed-for denials ensued, but he was not comforted. It took a change of scenery--to that mecca of the retired, Florida--before he abandoned his vigil for the grim reaper, and took up his life once again, regaining his youthful tennis prowess, with the trophies to prove it, well into his late sixties.
Rediscovering the passions of youth could be one way to move zestfully through our aging. Isn't that how retirement communities are sold?
Saturday, June 22, 2013
10 Ways You Get Smarter as You Get Older
Do we get smarter as we age? Apparently so!
"It's true that as you get older, your brain's processing speed begins to slow, and your memory may occasionally short out, says Margaret Gatz, PhD, professor of psychology, gerontology, and preventive medicine at the University of Southern California. But researchers have recently made some surprising discoveries about what's really happening in our heads as we age: "We are identifying ways in which older minds hold their own against younger ones and even surpass them," Gatz says. Here, 10 ways you get smarter as you go." Read more here.
"It's true that as you get older, your brain's processing speed begins to slow, and your memory may occasionally short out, says Margaret Gatz, PhD, professor of psychology, gerontology, and preventive medicine at the University of Southern California. But researchers have recently made some surprising discoveries about what's really happening in our heads as we age: "We are identifying ways in which older minds hold their own against younger ones and even surpass them," Gatz says. Here, 10 ways you get smarter as you go." Read more here.
Walking in the Weeds
This year, I retired from a career in education, primarily workforce
training and education, although I did teach high school, consult,
design curricula, and educate professionals working in various occupations, including higher
education. Since my retirement I have rarely thought about the intellectual issues of educating the workforce, or the
practical tasks involved with ensuring readiness in the workplace, two aspects of a lifelong career in education that had engaged my attention for decades. In
fact, after seven weeks of retirement, I have yet to open--much less
unpack--the boxes I brought home from my office.
People have asked me if retirement bores me, if loneliness has overtaken me, and if, by some chance, I might be ready to take on new challenges and even a new job. My brief answer to all of these questions: No.
People have asked me if retirement bores me, if loneliness has overtaken me, and if, by some chance, I might be ready to take on new challenges and even a new job. My brief answer to all of these questions: No.
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