How To Best Live Our Retirement Years
The answer here is obvious: there is no best way. We are all different and unique in terms of our personalities, current environment, past history, and financial status. Everyone who reaches their retirement years has a story to tell, and that story dictates their needs in retirement.
With a clumsy, albeit philosophical effort, there may be some generalities which apply to most retired persons, at least in the U.S. Since we have varied cultures existent in our society, any generalities may have limitations.
First, retirement means some sort of changing of the guard. The next generation will determine the future and our generation is relegated to observation and acceptance of this shift of power from one generation to the other. That is the way it should be, and those who try to swim against the current here will find life increasingly frustrating. With retirement, the stress levels of living should drop dramatically barring financial insecurity, or dire health situations. So in this musing, the assumption will be that one’s health is good and financial security at a livable level. After that it is all mindset. If the plan is for us to continue to pile material wealth higher and higher——well, any real contentment level will continue to be evasive. If we are addicted to titles, power, control over others, money, social stardom, and being endlessly entertained by others, well, contentment in our terminational years will be evasive or limited.
We all go through our formative and productive years with endless times feeling: “If I had things my way…….”. When we leave our productive years we at last (barring health or financial reasons), can have things our way; at least in theory. The glitch is that often our way becomes how we want others to behave towards us or in certain situations. We are only really free to do things our way in terms of matters which involve only ourselves. So much of our lives we often held the reins over so many others that is comes as a jolt to find out, in our terminational years, that we can continue to pull the reins, but there is no one at the other end. We are free at last, but so are they. This is not an easy hurdle for many, and is often a hurdle which too many cannot get over. The grown kids may not pay us enough attention, the grandchildren may no longer be eager to be around us very often, our friends are dispersed, too whiney, too dead from the neck up—or six feet under, former colleagues from work no longer have much relevant to any conversation, visits with others in group gatherings become more and more inane superficial babble. Nothing is like it ‘used to be’ when we were such important deciders and participants. What do we really gain from most of this? Somebody’s grandchild is a pharmacist now, one of your kids is arguing with his neighbor over this or that, somebody’s pet is so adorable that we spend hours participating in an adorableness exercise, and on it goes, insufferable useless meaningless tidbits. I learned early on to be careful how much genuine attention one pays to anyone’s pet or child. That pet could end up all over you for the rest of the evening, or the child want to play endless child games. You find many times that you don’t have control over any limits in these situations short of kicking the pet in the ass or breaking the childish game board. Of course I exaggerate here and am as guilty, or more so, than anyone else. Care to hear any more about Riva the Horse or Buff the dog?——we all get the point.
So, in effect, once we are in our terminational years we get to pick with whom we spend most of our time and doing what. So who best understands us? Who best likes the same things we do? Who best is compatible with our own unique personality? The answer is rather obvious. We know ourselves best and no one is as similar to us than us, or with time changes just like us. I always laugh at one definition of masturbation: “Sex with someone you love”. That is so absurd, and yet research has shown the greatest sexual climaxes are often achieved via masturbation. That fits right in with: “What’s the matter, you can’t think of anyone either?” I suspect some older people are reluctant to remarry for fear they might be expected to have sex with something as least sexy anymore as themselves. One person put it famously: "When I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, open my legs and think of England." I have always wondered how many older women were driven into depression over the appearance of Viagra on the scene? Or how many laughs are generated by middle-aged guys in a youthful pick-up bar, all dressed like they were part of a youth culture, as funny-looking as an aging starlet all surgically rearranged and implanted to escape their age.
Many important aspects of our life simply have to be let go. “Gone with the wind”, that is what they need be. I once could run like a deer and come off the final turn, and with enough determination, finish strong with an impressive kick.” I still can do the distance but need a calendar instead of a stop watch. People will often tell us, when aged, that we need to ‘get a life’ and do some exciting things.
Most people, by the time they reach retirement years, have had about enough excitement in life as they can stand. Peacefulness, contentment, relaxation, good meals, napping as needed, favorite music as needed, philosophizing about life, good memories, gratitude for all those who helped us along the way, the lack of any need to compete about most anything, the quietude, the gentle soothingness of nature, finally seeing the forest for the sake of the trees, the simple things in life——all these are right there in front of us to form a bed of roses in our terminational years.
Many however, make no attempt to ‘tip toe through the roses’ all around us, but spend their time trying to recreate long lost excitement about long lost activities of the past. That’s when the whining starts, and it is annoying to hear them whine away about everybody and everything. They simply can’t let go and endlessly seek others to amuse them, which then annoys the others in their productive years who have other pressing matters to attend to—namely a rat race that seems to never end. When we are senescent it is important that we, and those in their productive years, live in two different worlds. These worlds are different, not necessarily better or worse. Just like we had to make our productive years work out for us, we have to make our terminational years work out for us. Interestingly, barring bad health or financial stress, it is far easier to make our terminational years work out to our satisfaction. The reason is one word: simplification. Simplify, simplify, simplify, and then simplify further. A simple life fits the terminational years like a glove.
In our formative years we don’t really know how to steer, and take many wrong turns, but at least get all sorts of intense thrills, disappointments, and frustrations. Then comes our productive years and the gas peddle, most of the time, for most people, is floored the whole time. We manage to get many of the places we are going, to varying degrees, or we die trying, or we give up and languish, but one way or another, if we race or stagger across the finish line, we get the terminational years as our ‘victory lap’. With competition and a goal line, a victory is simply confusing. Once the race is over, little or nothing seems to revolve around ourselves anymore.
We seem to fall into two groups. Those who can’t stand this ‘victory lap stuff’ and those who relish every moment of it. We have really spent our lives picking up pieces of this giant puzzle called life. It is in the terminational years when we finally have the time to put all the pieces together. Human contentment is tied closely to human understanding. It can be very satisfying to learn something new everyday about the world we just experienced for such a minuscule period of time. Learning anything of importance is rather hard today. Some people have hundreds of people on a face book page, and communicate with these people endlessly with text messages. 99% of this messaging is inane babble no matter which way we cut it. In reality, more and more people end up alone together via huge cyberspace ‘noise’. It becomes a background ’noise’ which is a major addiction. I watch people on a train almost frantically dial one person after another lest they have to create an original thought of their own. I can’t resit telling someone, sometimes, that “I don’t have time right now to amuse you while you walk down the grocery isle.” Of course I have the time, but there are other things that give one a greater return on contentment, things that can enrich our final appreciation of life.
One feature of the human species which is too oft overlooked is our intrinsic ethical nature. No species is endowed with an ethical nature to the extent our species is so endowed. We should never confuse inherited religions with human ethics. Inherited religion is happenstance. Inherited religions are human devised scriptures written in age related cultures which have long since ceased to exist. It is quite a stretch for us to imagine that God would use inheritance to pass on the guidance we need to be ethical. The town idiot could devise a better distribution system for something so important as getting to Heaven or Hell. And where did the concepts of Heaven and Hell originate? Humans created this notion as a means to control human behavior. Inherited religion promotes the concept that it is God who controls everything about life, that individual humans can have a personal relationship with God, that God made humans in the image of Himself, that God rewards those who follow their inherited religion and punishes those who inherited a different religion, that prayer is a means to have altered outcomes for individual and group desires. If any of this were true there would be certain religions in which the followers would be less likely to die of cancer, to be raped, to be poor, to be killed on the battlefield, to be murdered, to live longer, and so on. After all, the people who follow that inherited religion would have God protecting them and interceding on their behalf to prayers so earnestly rendered. None of this happens, and terrible things can happen to just about anyone, and the best of people can suffer while the worst of people can ‘get away with murder’. And how do organized religions explain all this? Well, “God operates in mysterious ways”, and it is all ‘for the good’, just we can’t understand it.” This is really a musing for another day, so it best to stop here.
The genetic basis for human ethics is centered around the ability of humans to understand the Golden Rule as an ethical principle. Everyone everywhere understands this ethical concept. No one argues it is not an ethical concept. They certainly understand this concept when they are on the receiving end. We love it when someone treats us as they themselves would wish to be treated.
It is going the other direction which is difficult. Me first is also a genetic trait in all species, just at different levels. Nothing can be ethical which does not reward those who act ethically. “What is in it for me” is a question we ask ourselves all the time. It is not an ‘evil’ question at all. Organized inherited religions answer this question by creating “Heaven” and “Hell”. Genetic ethics answers this question via the achievement of personal contentment. Personal contentment is a reward we get right here in life, not something after death.
Contentment is the goal of every person’s life. For anything else we pursue in life the question can be asked, “What are you doing this for?”. The answer could be any number of things, like money, power, titles, beating competition, fame, love, and on it goes. But no one asks “why would anyone want to be contented”? It is the one aspect of living that is an end unto itself. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that the ethical genetic trait embodied in our species is the means to contentment. To the extent we can take care of ourselves and give equal effort to help the less fortunate, we can achieve contentment. We can find relatively contented people among all groups of every religion, every profession, every economic level, every culture, every country, etc. If ethics is a human genetic trait then this would be expected. What percent of the people in these groups are contented is going to vary. And it varies because some people who choose to limit any adherence to the Golden Rule will make if more difficult for the less fortunate to achieve some contentment in their lives. Those who pile up excessive wealth for themselves, or a genetic cabal of offspring, or any other group not part of the less fortunate, can never maximize contentment. It is hard for the wealthy to achieve contentment simply because the admiral effort they exerted to gain the wealth cannot bring them to share it with the less fortunate. There are a few exceptions—like Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet.
Over time when we help the less fortunate via time or money we have done a good thing. We are repaying all those who helped us in time of need. “I gained my successes the old fashioned way, I earned it” is almost always a self serving illusion. Others and luck played a significant role. Maybe a Terrell Owens can reasonably make this claim, but this is rare, and carries with it significant repercussions socially. There are side-effects with being too self focused. Often time the ‘rat race’ (our productive years) leave little time to excel at the Golden Rule. For varied reasons, some people are in a better position during their productive years to help the less fortunate than others. Even with ethics, life is never a level playing field. But everyone, via personal time or money, can help the least fortunate amongst us in our terminational years. And here is the clincher: Were our culture to be governed by the Golden Rule, every child would have a good school with good teachers, every citizen would have excellent health care, every citizen would have an opportunity for work at their own skill level, every worker would make a living wage, there would be no military actions without every single citizen making a sacrifice for such action, everyone would have the same legal rights as anyone else, there would be no more religious hatred or intolerance, no intolerance of ethnic or cultural variations, no sequestering of wealth among genetic cabals, and while there would still be variations in skills, wealth, social status, and so on, contentment in such a society would be maximized for the greatest number of people.
Personally, I have enjoyed sharing wealth with the least fortunate as much as I ever enjoyed accumulating it. Past a certain point wealth is a shameless and useless commodity. No matter how we tailor our terminational stage of life to fit our own peculiar personality it has to be built around the Golden Rule. Like a parent cannot be contented about their role as parent when the offspring are not successful on their own as best they can be, we cannot meet our own ethical obligations until we have personally done our part, with our time or money, to help the less fortunate in our global society, and given our support on issues which involve our natural resources and other species. Others do matter, and when they don’t, the ethical cost to our own lives is reduced personal contentment. With modern communication devices we truly have a global society. Countries are no longer that isolated from each other. There is a simple test all of us can administer to judge our own status regarding personal contentment. Here is the test, a quotation which sums up so much about the meaning of life. To the extent this quotation mirrors our own philosophy of life, we will have a personal contentment level to match.
“There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it’s natural and good, and it evolved that way by itself, it’s got to be cherished and if we think like that and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation.”
