Is Your Next Stop Retirement?
It appears nearly bizarre for baby boomers to contemplate retirement as the next stop in their long and eventful time on earth. However the absurd has turned out to be a certainty. As the baby boomer generation enters into their middle fifties and sixties, that vision of retirement appears closer and closer. Therefore it is natural and acceptable to sit back and review precisely what does that mean to each and everyone of us.
For most, the traditional perspective of heading for retirement maybe one of joy. The idea of putting aside your worries and bringing your work life to a comfy finish is something to look ahead to. The thought of a life of sleeping in, perhaps golfing and fishing as much as you would like, taking up several different hobbies and taking on a life of leisure is a heavenly mental picture for sure.
However the fact of retirement can also be a source of fear and anxiety. If the baby boomer who reaches that plateau isn’t financially prepared or the affairs and issues of their working life don’t seem to be ready to put aside, the thought of having to go retire merely because of their age seems to be a callous and an unpleasant outlook. In each of these two visions of a forthcoming retirement, we’re more and likely working under as much myth as we are in all reality about what it will be like to retire. Perhaps one issue baby boomers excel at is debunking myths and defying typical knowledge and defining each era of their lives in their own terms.
We tend to anticipate the same as baby boomers move towards retirement. This is a generation that fail to have the advantage of employers who had loyalty to their workers and retained the same members of staff from their college days through to their retirement departure and from whom they could rely on a well provided retirement package. Boomers are the generation that won’t let those kinds of things sneak up on them. Being able to work with such excellent organizations as AARP, there are resources and options baby boomers are able to tap into to form a secure monetary future regardless of the lack of involvement of former employers.
But like all alternative phases of life however, financial security isn’t what makes life meaningful all on its own. As baby boomers can see retirement ahead at their next stop, one more myth that has to be debunked is that retiring is the end of one’s productive part in life. This impression of leading a life of leisure, not working and letting others look after us isn’t necessarily a healthy move towards retirement anymore than it would be at any other phase of a person’s life.
The human race is at its best when it is useful, helpful, creative, productive and pursuing a dream. It has happened time and time again that when a senior can no longer feel part of something bigger than themselves and be productive in life, their will carry on and live declines with the inevitable result in an early end to life than it has to be. Thus the monetary requirement that some baby boomers face in that they may be required to work on into what is thought to be their “retirement years” may well have a underlying blessing of prolonging their lives in a healthy way. These boomers who do have to work, or elect to work, know they must stay more active and fit due to the fact that they have to get up and go to work and stay in better shape as a result.
For those people who may lay down their labours at retirement age, a second career can often be a great way for these aging baby boomers to not only create an additional revenue stream but to perhaps pursue a new career path that had always been a dream during their life. It provides another alternative as well for staying active and helpful while becoming passionate about a goal in life that has always been of importance to you.
The Boomers have always been a people that have been driven by causes. So what better way for the baby boomers to make use of their retirement than to become activists to make that difference in the world, just as they did in their youth. The world will benefit and be a better place for their involvement as well as make a better senior life for the aging Baby Boomer.
