5% of post rewards set to go to community!
Retired - Young at heart & slightly older at other places! source
That is exactly how I feel now. Many of us have this 'Baywatch' vision of ourselves on the beach among Beauties all the time when we think about retirement.
Is retirement all about beaches and fun?
My own click
I can say, based on personal experience, that as we approach the landing run of retirement, our visions of what retirement is goin to be all about start changing. We realize that we need to take care of the following aspects to enjoy retirement. After all it is all about -
Stop working for a living and work more at living itself
Isn't it?
To have such a 'life' of retirement, we need to take care of a few things...
Finding a purpose
Sun, sand and fun sounds great. We may enjoy it for a year or even 2 years but ultimately, doing nothing and just enjoying life also starts becoming a burden. The old adage - 'empty mind is a devils workshop' starts to kick in.
So - we need to find something to give us a goal. It need not be a burden in terms of physical or mental work but it has to be something that keeps us creatively engaged. A sense of achievement is needed.
A hobby is something of a must to keep us positively engaged. I have taken up photography - especially wildlife photography as well as Astro and Macro photography.
I am never without my camera 😀
Image source
We all have this desire about doing something that makes us feel creative but for which we never found time earlier. So, this is the time to dig up all those desires and pursue them.
Build that nest egg and plan budget
Like this Baya weaver bird meticulously building it's nest, we have to build our nest egg for retirement.
Build and maintain the retirement nest
My own click
Being financially independent is a big part of being able to enjoy retirement.
Whatever we say and feel when we are still young at early retirement, we need to realize that we will never be able to keep earning an income till the end of life. At some stage, as I said in the initial quote at the beginning of the post, only our hearts will remain young but our body will be unable to support us for undertaking any type of regular work. Therefore, not only must we build a nest egg but we must also learn to live within the means of the nest egg income,
Retirement: It's nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese. - Gene Perret
Does it mean giving up on the good things in life that we are used to, after retirement? Not really. It only means we evaluate our priorities and give up on the 'unnecessary' expenses. For example, I used to spend a fortune on subscribing to ALL TV channels that my streaming service provider provide but used to watch TV only 1-2 hours per night - mostly news and some movies. So, I could cut down on the expense by almost 60% by restricting the number of channels I subscribed to.
Taking care of health
Purpose, nest egg, budgets ... all will be useless if we are not healthy in our retired life. When we stop our active work life, our mind and body already gets a signal of 'slowing down'. The genetic programming in our bodies starts slowing down the maintenance machinery at some stage in life. We have no control on it. However, we can certainly work at giving the mind and body signals that 'there is still miles to go before we rest'. This is possible if we exercise regularly. We do not have to go all out and try to win the 'Iron man' competition or try to run a marathon!
Even regular, non-impact exercises like walks or Yoga will work. Anything that helps stretch and tone the muscles. See - even this common Kestrel does a bit of Yoga in the Sun. Why can't we !
Take care of health - Exercise! One legged Yoga?😀
My own click
Keep in touch with friends...
Friends are supposed to be the 'anti-oxidant' in life. Time spent with friends destresses us and helps to reduce tensions. This naturally makes us feel happy and even keeps away many stress related conditions such as hypertension and diabities.
Friends are the elixir of life
My own click
Give back to community
Being a retired know all is easy. We also have a lot of time on our hands to show off our knowledge to others. Most of us tend to use it negatively to criticize the current generation/current events/ current government etc. We love to reminisce and live in the past.
What we need to do instead, is to try and involve in communities to give back to the community. All our knowledge and wisdom, accrued over years and with a lot of hardship can become a beacon of knowledge and hope for some unfortunates in the society. Have you ever seen flamingoes or ducks flying in formation? Each of them, while flying, is actually generating lift not only for themselves but is also helping those behind them by the wake they create in air which makes it easier for ducks behind to fly.
Giving back to community - helping each other
My own click
I know that not all of us have the aptitude or appetite for directly involving with charities or communities with active work. However, we can at least provide a helping hand to communities that have a purpose with which we are aligned.
In my particular case, I am really thrilled to find HIVE and the Silver bloggers community so, I am doing everything I can, from delegating HP to setting post reward percentage to go to community account. It gives me immense pleasure to be involved in this way and motivates me to post as often as I can.
I am sure we all know most of what I said above. Saying it loud just helps me to motivate myself and hopefully, it will help some of us too.
Cheers everyone, Have a great day.
