retirement: scripted or impromptu?

Are you retired? Thinking of retirement? Planning for retirement?

An article titled "New Retirees: Avoid These Mistakes" lists seven things to watch out for in retirement. Four of the seven relate to money (not quitting before retirement is vested, having adequate health insurance, that sort of thing). The three remaining mistakes are:

• Moving to a place where you don't know anyone.
• Thinking your health will hold out forever.
• Spending too much time on travel and new hobbies.

The article got me thinking about how a person or couple might find themselves making those mistakes, and about retirement generally.

Personally one of the best things I did to prepare for this time of life was to get a little training and begin working as a freelance writer in my 50s. Ten years later I don't feel retired at all and am rarely bored or at loose ends with nothing to do (hubby is always bugging me to be more retired and less busy and scheduled). A friend of mine who has just retired from the federal civil service has spent evenings and weekends the last few years getting trained as an interior designer and decorator so she can start a whole new career in her retirement.

Of course if we are leaving satisfying work and a community of colleagues, retirement can feel very disorienting. As Dale Hanson Bourke describes it:

"My identity is no longer tied to a title or an organization .... If I cared to, I could certainly spin a good story when people ask what I'm doing nowadays; but most times, I don't bother. 'I'm doing a bit of this and that,' I reply. I've abandoned the ten-second power speech I once had ready to impress anyone who asked" - Dale Hanson Bourke, Embracing Your Second Calling, p. 104.

A friend of hers who is at the same life stage said:

"I'm no longer known as the president of my firm; I no longer have people being nice to me because of my position on the Board of Trade. My children are adults, and I am now challenged to find my new identity. It's exhilarating and terrifying at the same time" - Bourke, Op. Cit, p. 104.

What are your thoughts about retirement? Do you dread it? Look forward to it? Are you preparing for it in any way?

If you are retired, did you prepare for it or just let it unfold? How is it working out?

the aging artist

"America grows older yet stays focused on its young. Whatever hill we try to climb, we're over it by fifty — and should that hill involve entertainment or athletics we're finished long before. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but supermodels and newscasters, ingenues and football players all yield to the harsh tyranny of time. They turn on Fortune's wheel. Look what happens to the overnight sensation or pick of the week or fashion of the season or rookie of the year. First novels have a better chance of being noticed than a fourth or fifth. Although we're aging as a nation we don't do it willingly: The face-lift and the tummy-tuck are — against the law of gravity — on a commercial rise....

"This book is about tribal elders in the world of art. What interests me is lastingness: how it may be attained. For obvious reasons, this has become a personal matter; I published my first novel in 1966 and very much hope to continue. Too, such hope feels representative: a "generational" problem in both senses of the word. An ever-growing number of Americans are middle-aged or elderly; no natural catastrophe has thinned our swelling ranks. And the habit of creation does not die, so there are more who paint the sunset or take piano lessons or hunt the perfect end-rhyme at day's end. Our generation, like all others, yearns to produce some something that continues — and the generative impulse, when artistic, lingers on."

So begins the Introduction to Nicholas Delbanco's book Lastingness: The Art of Old Age. In it he explores how aging affects artists. He extracts thoughts about aging artists, their processes and persistence from people like Monet (who had cataracts) and John Updike who was still at work on writing projects when he died  in 2009 at 76 years of age.

An article about Delbanco's book on the NPR site explores some of the book's ideas as well as treating us to a 6-minute interview with Delbanco.



 The three questions Delbanco asked John Updike were:

1. How have your work habits changed at present from the days when you were an apprentice to the trade?


2. How have your aspirations changed; do you think of a day's work as "more of the same" or have you set yourself different goals?



3. Can you point me to a passage — or passages — in your own writing which deals with these issues, either head-on or obliquely?

Here's a snippet from Updike's answer to #3.:

"By and large what lasts best is the most concrete, the most actual, delivering to the reader a piece of earth and humanity. Aesthetic flourishes fade and wrinkle, though they may get attention when new. A blunt sincerity outlasts finely honed irony, I would think. An ability to see over the heads of important contemporary issues into the simple truth of daily life is what we can respond to a century later. . . ."

Read Updike's complete answers HERE (partway down the page).

How would you answer the questions Delbanco asked Updike?
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Related: 

• A Bible thought:

"Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life."  - Galatians 6:4-5 (Message)

• Liesel Mueller has written a wonderful poem about Monet and his vision problems. "Monet Refuses the Operation" begins:

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being . . .

Read entire...

book review: Simple Secrets to a Happy Life by Luci Swindoll

Title: Simple Secrets to a Happy Life
Author: Luci Swindoll

Excerpts from the Amazon product description of Simple Secrets to a Happy Life

"Is it possible to stay full of life, laughter, love, and the Lord through eight decades in this crazy world? Is that even realistic? Yes! There is hope, and Luci Swindoll is living proof.

 With heart and humor, this best-selling author and beloved speaker lays out the truths that can help us all become a little more creative, organized, healthy, and happy. This is not a complex prescription for how to become superwoman. These are simple secrets, the wisdom produced by years of walking with God and living well....

Luci has spent eight decades accumulating the stories, memories, verses, and practical tips that make up Simple Secrets to a Happy Life. Whether traveling the world or building life-long friendships, singing in the opera or working for Mobil Oil, every step has taught her a little more about how to love God, love her neighbor, and love herself."

 My review:

The title of Luci Swindoll’s latest book, Simple Secrets to a Happy Life, does a good job of describing this inspiring and practical volume. In it the almost-octogenarian author shares fifty of those secrets under the broad headings of The Basics, Developing Your Style, Achieving Balance, Living a Good Life, and Staying Connected.

In addition to topics one would expect to see in this type of book (like “Let people know you care,” “Write down the important things,” and “Look for ways to help”) are surprises like, “Know for sure you’re insured,” “Cook something special for yourself,” and “Draw a picture to understand” (where she suggests sketching and drawing as activities to help us understand what we see in the world around us).

Swindoll’s writing style is warm, friendly, and encouraging. The stories she tells on herself make the book relatable to life, interesting, and authoritative. Sometimes they add humor. But more often than not they have an “ouch” quality that makes it easy to see why they have stuck with her and underline the important life-lesson they illustrate. For example, there was the time she got an invitation for breakfast from a co-worker, said she’d attend, but come Saturday morning simply stayed away, rationalizing that it wasn't all that important. Later she discovered that her friend had anticipated her visit all week, prepared for it at length, and was deeply hurt by her no-show — told in Chapter Two: “Be On Time for Everything.”)

Themes that flow through her “Secrets” are contentment, gratitude, generosity, faith, openness to adventure, common sense, self-awareness, independence, hospitality, and graciousness. It is inspirational cover-to-cover with an uplifting and positive take-away for whatever life-stage you’re in.

Simple Secrets to a Happy Life would be good to read any time, but would be an especially great choice for when you are at a life crossroads like graduation, starting a new career, marriage, retirement, or simply as preparation for making the next set of New Year’s Resolutions. Rereading it annually probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either! Now, where did I put my sketch book and pencils?

(I received a digital copy of this book as a gift from the publisher for the purpose of writing a review.)

Book facts: (Hardcover edition)
Title: Simple Secrets to a Happy Life
Author: Luci Swindoll
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, March 13, 2012, 224 pages.

• ISBN-10: 1400203538
• ISBN-13: 978-1400203536