Surviving Retirement

I have been retired from active work for eight months at the time of this writing. Before retiring, I heard many tragic stories of friends or colleagues who quit work before me. Those stories were mostly about depression, sudden illnesses and even cases of death shortly after retirement. It is a known fact that people tend to live a long and fulfilling life when exercising professions such as politics, arts and science, where there is no formal retirement. However, in professions like the military, government, commerce and industry, where formal retirement is the common practice, you will need to be prepared for it if you want to reach this long and fulfilling life.

In most developed countries, retirement age occurs between 60 to 65 years of age. In many countries, there is what is called "early retirement age", which is set 3 to 5 years before the normal retirement age. This means that if you started working at around 25, you would be probably retiring after 35 to 40 years of work. It is ironic that those troubles appear at the moment one gets the well-deserved reward for working so many years.

The transition between the active working life and retirement is anything but brutal. All of a sudden your life completely changes: your days are no longer divided into dedicated regular hours, time goes on interminably in one continuous span, you don't need to go or be anywhere, it doesn't matter if you stay at home or go out, there are no commitments, nobody is waiting for you or depending on you. In fact, the big thing in this new retired life is that nothing is fixed, and nothing really needs to be done, in the majority of cases your survival is assured by your retirement pension, you just have to sit around and enjoy life.

For most people, this is what they have dreamed all their working lives: the freedom to choose what to do and when to do it. But for others, it may result in a considerable social and personal shock. Not having the answer to the question "What shall I do now?" can have a dramatic impact, leading to disorientation, boredom and distress. For many retirees, this shock is so profound that they may end up with serious illnesses that were not there before...

In my humble opinion, after eight months of retirement, I believe that it has a lot to do with the degree of intellectual activity you had while working: the more intellectually demanding activity you had before, the harder will be the transition. This explains why there are fewer problems in activities where there is no retirement, since the brain will continue to be exercised until you die. Some people would explain it in a different way, saying that it has to do with the degree of happiness: if you're happy, you have more chances to live a long life. I'm not so sure about that. I've seen people not so happy living a long life but being very active throughout, and I've seen some very happy people dying suddenly of heart attack. I am not saying that keeping the mind busy will make you live longer, what I am saying is that the sudden decrease of intellectual activity may cause you serious problems.

I had many plans for my retirement. Being a software engineer and passionate about my profession, I envisaged dedicating myself to some personal projects and new techniques that I wanted to explore. Basically, I faced retirement simply as a means to offer me the freedom of choosing my own direction in the field, without the restrictions of a contractual job. However, in this first phase of my retirement, I had to face many different logistical problems that had nothing to do with my profession (moving part of my household to another country, selling my house, buying a new one, etc). Because of concentrating only on those, my brain was idling and then, emotions took over. And when emotions take over, you become vulnerable to stress. And stress is the enemy to avoid at all costs!

Because of stress I already had three different health problems, one of them rather serious that affected my eyes, preventing me of doing computer work for the next year or two. I have been thinking about that quite a lot, and I decided to regroup and change my behavior. Whatever I need to do in the future, it is imperative that I reserve some time for brain activity. Whatever mundane problems need to be solved I need to do as if I am still at work, i.e., have some regular hours where I dedicate myself to a rewarding intellectual activity that will keep my brain cells busy and the adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately for me, at least for now, it cannot be computer work, but I have other tricks up my sleeve. Many retirees concentrate mostly in physical activities to keep themselves fit, but intellectual activity is as important, believe me!

For many, retirement is like a permanent vacation, and they are happy with sitting every day at the beach, under the sun, drinking a caipirinha, keeping a close eye on the people around them, listening to music from the MP3 player, swimming in the ocean... All this may sound great, but for others like me, vacation is only a necessary break to relieve the tension and recharge the batteries before continuing the activities that I enjoy doing. Therefore, for this sort of people, a permanent vacation is equal to a slow death albeit a pleasant one.

Thus, my final advice to you is to get well prepared for retirement. Don't be idle, don't let simple everyday problems take over your full time, get a part-time job if you can, or anything that will bring back regular hours, some commitment, some purpose to your life (a friend of mine is doing part-time volunteer work, and this is a good solution). After your mundane problems are solved, you will still have plenty of time to enjoy yourself while you are kept in shape by occupying your mind with some challenging and gratifying activity.

My Friend Nel

I was first introduced to Nel a little more than two years ago from the time of this writing, in December 2007, by a friend of my daughter. She warned me before hand that he was shy and difficult to approach, but nevertheless bearer of a very pleasant character. Since then, my friendship with Nel has never ceased to grow.

But it was only recently, when Nel got sick after an accident with his paw, that I realized how much I appreciate his company and how much I became dependent on it.

We don't talk much when we are together, usually sitting near to each other, doing our own things or watching a movie or taking a nap. It is the sheer power of his presence, his peaceful but inquisitive look, his beauty and his sweetness that have captivated me all this time we know each other. I am a very lucky person because I have many friends, all very nice and very sweet to me. But Nel stands out, probably because of all my friends he's the one who is more fragile and needs me most. Even so, he's the one who's always there to cheer me up when I feel a bit gloomy. Seeing him sick, disoriented and sad, had a big impact on me, I felt very anxious and afraid. I have lost many friends in the course of my life, some of them in tragic circumstances and every time such a loss occurs, it is hell.

Before meeting Nel, I had sworn not allowing any more friends living with me, to avoid this pain. When one gets older, one gets also more vulnerable and more sentimental; the loss of a good friend becomes an unbearable grief. However, I must admit that life without friends is far from being ideal, although being perhaps emotionally safer. Having Nel around, seeing him waiting for me at the top of the stairs when I arrive home, is a sign that all is well, the world hasn't changed, it is safe to come home and enjoy his company. No man can decently live well alone, and having a friend like Nel is a real blessing.

I called him Pimpernel, because he's red and elusive (to others), but it soon became Nel, for short. Today I'm celebrating: I will take off the awful collar that he wore for over a week and give him back his freedom, hoping that his foot is cured for good. And I will enjoy again his cheerfulness, his presence around me in the house, and the restored beauty of his movements.  My friend Nel will be there at the top of the stairs, waiting for me when I come home from my other friends tonight. We'll hug each other and go about our own things. The world will be back to normal again...

Retirement is not an option!

I have now passed 65 and I have retired from my paid job last month.  It is kind of weird that a lot of people around me have more trouble about this fact than myself.  They seem worried, they all ask what am I going to do, what are my plans, etc.  I was never a guy to plan too much ahead so, trying to be funny and relax them a bit, I say that I am going to sleep a lot...

But some of them took this joke very seriously: the other day, an elderly figure of my family, perhaps trying to look good at my expense, remarked that he could not understand the "young people of today, who only think about stopping work"... He said that he could not live without work and that he would work until he died. Well, if he expected me to feel guilty about retiring, he failed miserably.

Obviously, the elderly member of my family doesn't know anything about my work. I have spent more than 40 years in Software Development and Software Support. Those who were crazy enough to work in these areas of IT know that it is not exactly a "normal" job. I believe that I never worked less than 12 hours a day at work and continuing at home, evenings and weekends.  Several times I had to go through two or even three days without sleep in order to finish a product on a tight deadline. But I did it all because I wanted, because of a passion for a very interesting and intellectually challenging work...

To me, retirement simply means freedom, freedom to work for myself and to do what I want, when I want. I can choose now the projects I will undertake, the techniques I want to learn and experiment with, etc. Development of software is not only a profession, it can also be a fascinating hobby, if you have enough time. And now (guess!), I have plenty of it! And I have other things too that I love and never had the time to dedicate myself to them. I am deeply grateful to a social system that gives us this privilege, but I have contributed to it, I have earned it and I don't feel guilty at all.

On the other hand, paraphrasing the abominable John Bolton, ex-UN ambassador for the US, who wrote "Surrender is not an option", I would say that retirement, as a mean to stop doing what you are good at, is certainly not an option. As it happens, my elderly family member was right. It's a pity though, that he sees it through a very narrow perspective. Nevertheless, I should thank him for the "young people", although it doesn't help much when I look myself in the mirror every morning :-(