Retirement

Following on yesterday’s rumination on the word “retire,” a word I think should be retired, today I focus on the word “regenerate” since MEA is dedicated to regeneration, not retirement.

With credit to David Corbett who inspired me with a run-on sentence in his book “Portfolio Life,” here’s what the word “retire” conjures up for me. Tomorrow, I’ll repeat this exercise with the word “regenerate.”

In Germany, they call it a smorgasbord. In Hawaii, it’s a pu pu platter. In your career, it’s a portfolio life. If you believe “variety is the spice of life,” then this may be how you design your work life after age 50. It works like this:

Occasionally, someone enjoys a week at MEA in Baja and says it was life-changing, but in the next sentence, they say, “But, how do we change the workplace to embrace the need for modern elders?”

I have been reading Chip's posts eagerly in anticipation of my retirement. I was looking for inspiration, affirmation, and maybe that push I needed to take the plunge. Retirement to most people is a bittersweet moment. Yes, it's something that most people look forward to and plan for, but being the last stop at the train station has its scary moments.

My friend Ken Dychtwald has been one of the leading thinkers on aging and retirement. His company AgeWave has published all kinds of insightful studies that are well worth your time.

"When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw." - Nelson Mandela, crusading against the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Excerpted from "The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul," her book which was released this week. After 30 years as a psychotherapist, my attention was moving away from the work, and my heart was opening in other ways.

I’m either an idiot or a visionary, depending on who you listen to. I’ve made my share of mistakes and some of them whoppers.

There's nothing like going back to work to improve our retirement years. I recently accepted a part-time gig at a brand-new Assisted Living facility close to home.