Although patients with longstanding, especially terminal, illness are usually dismissed from work on medical leave, some self-employed individuals may find distraction from the unpleasantness of their affliction and side effects from therapy by continuing to perform whatever duties of their cherished occupation they still can. The rest should be afforded a well-deserved retirement.
STATUS AND RESPONSIBILITY
I have known people who wanted to retire, could afford to retire, but due to their status or responsibility could not. One, a successful businessman, could not find a suitable buyer for the company he started and since he was not expendable, due to a unique artistic talent he possessed, he could not find a replacement for himself. Not wishing to dissolve his company and feeling responsible for the welfare of his employees, he continued to go to work each day until he died. He wanted very much to retire to a carefree life, but morally he could not live with the knowledge that he would put two hundred people out of work.
In some families, after the children have been raised, educated and have left home to live separate lives, the burden of caring for older parents falls on the “in-between” generation, often interfering with retirement plans. Even if they don’t live in the same house, although that would be an obvious diversion, the need to be close by and on call for any of a myriad of geriatric emergencies would interfere with any desire to relocate. If the parent or parents are financially dependent, the cost burden might be just enough to derail any retirement plans until the death of all those dependents.
LIFESTYLE
The very affluent do not have to be concerned with downsizing after retirement, but the majority of retirees may find that they do have to curtail their lifestyles in relation to the success or failure of their financial planning. Hopefully those who adhere to the formulas outlined in this book and start at a young enough age will avoid the need to cut back on their reasonable expectations. Most projections of the financial needs of retired families anticipate that most, if not all, liabilities, such as mortgages and other loans have been satisfied. Retiring with large debts not covered by substantial assets is not advised.
The question must be asked if a family could be comfortable giving up some of the everyday luxuries they have become accustomed to and still function acceptably. Which ones? How much has to be sliced from the family budget? How should spending be curtailed? Should shopping sprees be eliminated? Should we move to a smaller home or buy a less expensive car?
To some individuals the status of being able to spend freely and accumulate “stuff” is very important in the evaluation of self-worth. What you have is equated to who you are. It is seen as the measure of your success. Throughout history, one has been evaluated by one’s possessions, whether it be the number of servants, cattle, homes, acreage of land or money. Today many people find this to be shallow thinking, but others discover it is very difficult to retire to a standard of living below what has become their norm in past years.
The family members involved in households with limited means must get together and decide whether they could be comfortable existing under the restraints of a lower standard of living or would an alternate course other than retirement be more advisable, if that option is available.
HOBBIES
Since childhood I have been attracted to the sea. When I was young, I used a tree branch for a fishing rod to fish off a pier and loved to go to the beach and swim. Now, in retirement, I answer the soothing call of the sea. As I sit in front of my computer, I often glance out the window at the lagoon that serves as my muse. Deep sea fishing is my passion. I never feel closer to nature, or God if you are so inclined, than when I toil in my garden or when I am out at sea. The sea calms me better than any chemical tranquilizer ever could. The thrill of hooking and reeling in a fish after a sporting battle refreshes my spirit. It is a spiritual exercise. The sea is my temple, my escape from the world. When the weather doesn’t allow outside activities and I’m not writing, I paint. Many of the walls in my house are now adorned with my best efforts.
Like many jobs, the work that I did for over forty years—listening to people hour upon hour of each working day talking about their deepest thoughts and darkest secrets, requesting help with difficult aspects of their lives and relief from troubling symptoms—was stressful. Although I enjoyed the work immensely and described it like being involved in an interactive soap opera on television all day long, after several months of this heavy burden of responsibility I literally demanded a vacation. These were not vacations of choice, but of necessity, to refresh myself so I could continue functioning at the level required to be at peace and helpful to my patients.
Now that I no longer treat disturbed people, many of whom exhibited vile and unpleasant symptomatology, vacations are once again a luxury and not a necessity. Since my wife and I now enjoy perpetual vacation time, long periods away are no longer needed. Shorter breaks in the usual routine suffice to serve as restoring escapes from the business of everyday living.
Involvement in our hobbies gives us adequate time away from chores to experience such periods of escape from the ordinary.
Reading a good book, riding a bicycle, playing a pleasurable sport or enjoying a lovely day at sea can be adequate vacation substitutes during retirement years, especially when age and physicality curtail maneuverability and make travel a bother.
I want to make a strong case for gardening as a hobby. Some men may consider this a less masculine endeavor, but let me tell you, there are few better ways to exercise and appreciate nature than by planting flowers, pruning shrubs or pulling weeds. Without realizing it, in a few hours you have done hundreds of deep knee bends. Planting or chopping down a tree can give your biceps and triceps a workout. However, the true glory is in the communion with nature: making and watching things grow, giving birth to living things. Thirty-five years ago I planted twenty-six evergreen trees, two rows of thirteen on each side of our small plot of ground. Some of these trees have risen to nearly thirty feet high, giving us much-desired privacy, as houses in shore communities such as ours tend to be built close together. Whenever I look at the rows of greenery at our property edges I appreciate their beauty with a sense of pride.
FRUGALITY
My love for the sea initiated my great wish to live on a large boat and travel at my pleasure. While this was still a pipedream, my wife and I enjoyed taking sea cruises with friends and family during vacation times. When the dream became more of a quest, we began to charter yachts with two other couples to experience life on the sea. What I discovered was a revelation. Buying a live-aboard boat not only entails the initial purchase cost, but the upkeep may be quite expensive. If the owner cannot afford a captain and a crew then he has to become an expert mechanic to tend to the engines by himself while away from shore. However, the more I learned about the costs and difficulties of being the owner of a relatively large boat, the more I realized that I could not afford it and, even if I could, it would at best be a temporary way of life of which we would ultimately tire. We would then hope we could sell our boat for a sufficient fraction of the original cost to be able to buy a new house. So we stayed in our old house, to keep my dream from becoming