Retirement is for wimps!

Our present situation makes me reflect on retirement.

 

We were fortunate to find this winter retreat, but we began coming here well before I ‘retired’ which I have not actually done. The fact that I am a freelance means that I can choose when to work and when not. I have never retired in the real sense, but I have to recognise that I am a victim of ageism. Some teen-age key-basher runs my CV though the company profiler and says ‘ That ancient git; must be joking!’  So the approaches from clients diminish and tend to be for countries in which few people wish to work.

 

The latest was Lahore, but too dangerous and the project was three years.

 

The hoo-hah over raising the retirement age escapes me.

 

Being put out to grass at 65, in possession of your intellectual faculties and with a lifetime of experience, strikes me as cruel and unusual punishment.

 

Work is part of your normal functioning.

 

It gives a purpose in life. It (hopefully) gives you interest. It’s where you find daily companionship and where you make most of your friends. It’s why you bother to get up in the morning.

 

And of course it’s where the money comes from.

 

Unless you have another interest and a minimum income of £65,000 a year, you can say au revoir to most of the above.

 

A friend of mine sold his accountancy business for a considerable sum, sufficient to give him a comfortable situation. I asked him what he would do next, expecting him to say that he was simply making a career change. ‘Play golf every day’ was his reply.

 

And that’s another trap.

 

Playing golf or indulging in any other pastime is only pleasurable if it is a change from your normal activities. When they become your raison d’etre, the attraction rapidly palls. That is why holidays are only pleasurable by way of a change. After a time, relaxation morphs into boredom.

 

Another is that you and your spouse get under each other’s feet and often right up each other’s noses buy the unfamiliar circumstance of being in each other’s company all day. It is no surprise that the incidence of divorce amongst retirees is rising rapidly.

 

I know a number of people – not very well because they rarely make an appearance - who are highly qualified professionals. They sit at home doing the cross-word and waiting for God

 

So what to do? Well, something. Become a lollypop person. Get a job with B&Q which has the sensible policy of recruiting over-fifties because they are hard- working, punctual, courteous with customers and know a thing or two, qualities that are not invariably present in the younger generation. Join VSO and see the world and help to make it better. Stand for the local Council. Anything other than sitting at home watching Noel Edmunds.

 

I had the pleasure in Malawi of meeting an American orthopaedic surgeon, who must have been getting on because he was an original MASH doctor during the Korean War.

Every year he spent 3 months in the country operating pro bono on local patients who would otherwise gone untreated. (It was well-met indeed, because my wife had recently broken her arm and it had been badly set, causing much pain. He fixed free of charge). He later stood for Congress when well into his 70’s.

 

Interestingly, it’s the US and the UK that have the highest number of people still employed after retirement. (I read a story about the take-over of Wal-Mart of a furniture company owned by an elderly lady. It was a condition that she remain on the board. She attended the office daily. She was 101 years old).

 

The French  can’t wait to pack it in and spend their days playing petanque and drinking pastis.