Life will never slow down because we have retired or perhaps we are now getting old, weak, and tired. Responsibilities will always show up, bills will forever surface, and that's why I have sat down one day to imagine how my retirement moment will look, but before then, I will embrace and enjoy relief from work pressures, meeting deadlines, and the like, but then, what comes up after that?
You know, I was opportune to work with my former boss, a retired MD of the Exxon Mobil firm. The man retired as a very wealthy, strong, and ambitious man. I learned a lot from him working under him for three years as his admin assistant/secretary.
He opened a private firm a year after his retirement. According to him, he started planning for his retirement five years ahead of time. He was able to secure a well-furnished office setting, equipped it a lot, and hired engineers and other workers to make the place highly functional. He has 5 kids, and all of them are abroad; some are married and still abroad. He has shares and lots of assets. From this, you can agree with me that he was privileged to be into money while he was working, so establishing his private firm was solely to make him strong by stepping out, doing things, especially at his convenience, and without pressure.
He had all the money that could comfortably sustain him for life, but to avoid a boring life, he set up the private firm, where he comes, interacts with his staff and clients, plays with his laptops, takes us for lunch once in a while, visits the church, attends programs, flies abroad for holiday any time he wants, and more.
Each day, I admire the kind of life he was living and permit me to say that I copied a lot from him, setting them aside waiting for that moment of my life. It's going to be intentional living for me; of course, it won't be inactivity, but slow and steady staying productive without any kind of pressure. Like my boss, every kind of chore at home he has servants for that while he softly supervises them.
His pension is like people's main salary, counting in millions. Even if I am not privileged to have such a high pension, I am already working hard to see that my business pays me a reasonable pension while I am retired. I think life is about proper planning; we can plan to fail or succeed; a lot lies in our hands; overall, God is the ultimate, but we have a big role to play now that we are still young and strong.
Who wouldn't love to travel to many places and enjoy adventure? It's part of my plan come my retirement time,of course with my husband . I don't see myself getting bored during my retirement moments. I have a lot to keep me engaged. I might even be writing still, sharing my life experience on social media, sharing deep stories, even about how I survived the Nigerian economy, stories about my faith, going for marriage classes, teaching others through my parenting experiences, and more.
Overall, retirement for me would majorly be about discovering who I am devoid of pressure, and that alone is a lot to keep me active without getting bored.
Images were taken from canva