I was thinking about retirement and how many people put off retirement because they enjoy their work and they feel as if they are accomplishing something with their life. I could not argue with these people about their reasons. However, I do not feel we as a society do enough to prepare people for retirement.
Retirement should be a time to reflect on your life and do things that you have always wanted to do but never had the time to do. It is a well deserved slow down from the quick pace and responsibilities of having a job. In my particular case, I have pursued my music interest - taking piano lessons. My goal is not to get a job but to be able to play beautiful music for myself and occasionally for others. I would also like to try painting but I have not made that commitment yet. I have stayed away from pursuing things that were related to my job of teaching because I am afraid that I will make commitments that will tie me down. I do not want to be tied to a part-time teaching job with a schedule. I like the idea that I can go anywhere I want when I want.
Everyone should give back to their community by volunteering - so far I have stayed with projects put forth by Kiwanis which I have joined. Again, I do not want to commit myself to a schedule.
One of the highlights of retirement is the freedom to wake up in the morning at a leisure pace -read and think about life and decide what you want to do for that day. I am not sure I could ever go back to that pace of getting up and rushing out to a job in the morning.
Another issue is health - We just do not know what tomorrow will bring. There are so many cases where people develop cancer, arthritis or some other health issue as they age. I try to do some kind of exercise but I am not as dedicated as I should be. When my wife and I are in Florida, we join the YMCA and make a concerted effort to go just about every day. We need to make a similar commitment while we are up North.
Another thing to think about is community. Where will our life long friends live? Will they follow a similar lifestyle or will we make new friends. I do like the idea of living in a community and sharing thoughts and ideas about growing old. My ideal setting is to find a church within a community that I feel part of and want to grow with. The catholic church has always been my religious focus but it does not meet my needs for community. They are not meeting the needs of the communities in the US by finding ways to ordain married and female ministers. Smaller communities are better than larger and the catholic church's solution is to make larger parishes with fewer priests.
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