I had the opportunity to visit the wisdom of the retired not once, not twice, but on multiple occasions. And this is the peep into the 'retirement' that all of us with Jobs, are wishing for. Maybe you are far away from it, maybe you are closer to it. But for everyone this will provide insights.
Retirement Problems - physical health
First of all, a true account from a retired. According to this person, he expected no more problems in retirement. However, he noticed that there are new set of problems which come in the retirement. You are at your latter part of your life. Although your mind is sound, the body is not, and it will start to fail like an old car. Some problems are mendable, some are not. Things you take granted today can be challenging in retirement. Things like walking, hearing even peeing. No need to talk about the eyesight and sleeping.
Retirement Problems - Mental health
For someone else, it may be the other side. Although there is reasonable function in the body they will deteriorate with mental health. There can be loneliness, and depression combined with dementia, slowly we will start to lose the connection with the world as we know it. These are inevitable and everyone knows diseases are just the beginning of the end.
Retirement Problems- financial
On top of this your financial capacity will be reduced. As long as you are saved some you will be saved. Often this is not the case for most of us. We might need additional help, from everyone around us. Once independent now depended on will be the new normal for the retirement. Of course, with proper planning we can avoid trouble. But as you see not everything is avoidable and nobody can predict the future. Even the covid pandemic hit hard on elderly and it is a fact retired are more vulnerable a population.
So, the retirement is not without problems. You just trade new set of problems to old set of problems. So, when can I truly rest? When can I retire?
Better attitude for retirement.
When I think about the problem, I noticed that it is wrong attitude to look at life. It seems life is always with problems. We cannot expect 'retirement' as a true rest. Instead, we should look at retirement just as a transition from your 'work' to 'retirement job'. I am not a destroyer of your happiness if you are planning to retire next year.
Instead, a better way to look at this problem is knowing how to 'rest'. First, we need to understand what a rest is. Rest is a space physical and mental for us to heal from the wear and tear. Imagine this as a time to turn off your mental machine. For someone it may be sleep, or a vacation, a run or a walk. Type of rest depend on the individual and the personality. For someone like me being an introvert silence and being closer to the nature with mindfulness helps to charge the battery of life, so I can come back strongly to make others happy. To make you happy writing this article.
I suggest you look at your life and identify things, places and people who or whichever made you feel rested and supercharged. Maybe you can write them down.
Welcoming Rest, in place of retirement.
Next step is to stop yearning for retirement. Like I said, it is so far away for most of us and not so fancy for most of us. There is a fair bit of chance that I would never see my retirement at all. Instead, we can replace the retirement with "Rest". A rest is a good little achievement you can do. You can do Rest today. You can even Rest now. If you close your eyes and be mindful for a couple of minutes, it has the power to make you feel good. It doesn't have to be fancy like retirement. If you include plenty of rest into your life, that is all we can expect from life. You would not agree with me today. I suggest you come back to this article once you are so tired of the rat race. And remember the important message.
Do not retire, instead Rest.
You can never retire, that is an illusion created by our society. But you can rest, even when you work hard today, or even when you're "Retired". When you rest properly you will never be tired, so you have to retire. Truely speaking you can be retried while you are awaiting your retirement. Some people call it work life balance. I would say it is just life. Life is work and rest. Life is problems and silence. Life is craving and satisfaction. Life has two sides, always trying to be hanging onto one is impossible. So, after some time of resting, eventually you will feel the need to 'rest the resting'.
In summary:
Retirement has its own problems. Physical mental and financial
Instead of retirement we should aim for resting.
If you are yearning for your retirement, I suggest you are tired and invite you to have a rest, because true retirement only happens when you exhale your last breath.
Thank you for reading
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