Is Retirement All It’s Cracked Up To Be?
Wage slaves and entrepreneurs alike look forward to retirement. They may dream about rolling over when the alarm goes off. They see themselves struggling to the window to gloat over all the people who are still cogs in the wheel. But is this truly the reality of retired living? Or does retirement hold a few unexpected challenges for the newly under-employed person?
In the early days of retirement, the feeling of relief is overwhelming. We relax our dress style and our obsession with punctuality. We feel as though we are on vacation and we wallow in that lovely feeling. However we soon notice that this vacation is going on a little too long. We are not used to having this much time off. The day comes when we start to notice a feeling of being out of touch with our former world. The camaraderie of the workplace may have been a fixture in our lives for years. We have now joined another group–the non-working group.
Single retirees are often shocked to discover that when they no longer belong to their old working group of comrades, they have no social life. They may have gradually built all their friendships and activities exclusively with their long time work mates. Now that they are isolated from the group, they have no one to interact with. This is not such an obvious problem for married people when they retire. They may have joint interests with their partner which will keep them socially active. But the newly retired married person has his own troubles.
After years of not being around one another because of work, couples can quickly find tension developing between themselves upon retirement. A mid-life crisis often develops when two married retirees are suddenly thrown together at retirement. They may both find that they have changed sufficiently over their working lives to have few common interests when their work life ends. Divorces often happen at this juncture.
Something else that can happen around this time is that health issues can arise. Some long term conditions may worsen, or may become more noticeable upon retirement. Those who had hoped to explore the world in their retirement may find their options reduced by ill health. They often must re-evaluate their planned activities.
The plans that were made forty years ago may no longer be feasible. If extensive outdoor activities are on the ‘Bucket List’ they may need to be changed. Some people think they will spend their golden years living cheaply in Mexico. Now they must face the fact that they wouldn’t be happy doing so without a pallet of antacids and tanker truck of drinkable water. Those who considered an active retirement, of climbing Kilimanjaro and Everest know they’d need extra equipment to pull it off now. They’d need a portable space heater for those freezing nights. They’d need to pack all of their regular arthritis remedies with some trigosamine thrown in for good measure. Running with the bulls in Pamplona would be no longer be an option.
With an updated plan of how you will spend your retirement, you can still enjoy many of the things that you dreamed of, while employed. You need to be realistic in your expectations, and plan your retirement well in advance. You can make your golden years better than expected.
