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How to Make Retirement Rewarding

RETIREMENT! The very thought of it appeals to many hardworking persons. They fondly think of it as a time of freedom from toil and freedom from responsibilities; a time for doing as they please; a time for recreation and “fun.” And it has proved to be just that for not a few, as extensive surveys made by two large universities have shown.

On the other hand, in a great many instances it appears that retirement has turned out to be anything but a blessing. According to researchers, “The ‘Golden Years’ featured in American advertising are too often years of apathy, depression and despair.” Another report tells how retirement often leads to headaches, depression, stomach trouble, oversleeping, irritability, loss of interest and the drinking of more alcoholic beverages.

One of the directors for the American Association of Retired Persons says that “a lot of [retirees] are bitter. They think: ‘The company didn’t want me and they turned me out.’” More or less agreeing with them is Dr. F. H. Cookinham, who at the age of ninety-one years is the oldest practicing physician in California, and who after fifty-eight years of practice still makes house calls: “Many a man who is retired at age 65 is at his very best. Retirement is a crime against 50 per cent of them.” A research couple, who made a global tour investigating the lot of retired persons in European lands (including Russia), China, Japan, as well as the United States, came to the conclusion that “the problem of the isolated oldster is, in fact, present in most of the world’s developed nations, whatever their system of government.”

After a man reaches the age of sixty-five he can expect to live, on an average, some thirteen years more; a woman can hope to live seventeen years more. Of course, for the 25 percent (in the United States) that keep on working, retirement poses no immediate problem, but it may well do so for the rest. Retirement marks a big change in one’s life and therefore one should plan and prepare for it, even as one planned and prepared for marriage and for one’s career in life. Says one authority on the subject: “You should condition yourself [for it] emotionally, financially, and even physically . . . If a good job of preplanning was done before retirement, a lot of these problems would go out the window.” One noted financial institution, the Royal Bank of Canada, recommends that you begin learning about retirement at the age of forty. The new Encyclopædia of Occupational Health and Safety, issued by the International Labor Organization, states that you should begin planning at least five years ahead of time. And an Australian labor publication recommends that for a happy old age you should begin while still a teen-ager by adopting a balanced diet.

Planning Financially

Planning for retirement involves a number of factors. To begin with, there is the matter of income. Today most persons living in developed countries can expect to receive some form of “Social Security.” This may be enough to live on even though it may amount to only half of what you had been earning. Can you exact a pension? That will help. Planning ahead may also mean having savings in a bank, investing in insurance and in stocks or bonds or real estate. All such aids are in keeping with the Biblical injunction to consider the ant, which makes provision during summer and harvesttime for the winter ahead.​—Prov. 6:6-8.

Planning and preparing for retirement also mean conditioning yourself to getting accustomed to more modest circumstances. Prepare yourself to spend less on food, clothing, shelter and recreation. Take an inventory and determine what is more important to you and what is less. Here also the old saying applies, “It is never this AND that, but this OR that.” Should you find that you will need added income, explore the possibilities. There are many of them, your kind being determined by your abilities, your resourcefulness and where you happen to be living. You might be able to start a small business, such as raising herbs or growing mushrooms, or you might be able to start a modest cleaning service, even as others have done.

Have you a hobby that upon retiring can be turned into a profitable business? For example, there was a railroad engineer who used to make violins as a hobby​—he coming from a violin-making family. Now as a retiree he makes violins full time to his heart’s content. One retired woman makes rag dolls and sells them; a pair of retired oldsters make wooden models of old-time stage coaches and sell them. If you are an American farmer, you might consider the “Green Thumb” projects, as thousands of other retired farmers have done. Three days a week they plant grass and trees, clean out lakes and ponds and build picnic tables and fireplaces, for which they receive some $40 a week.

Truly many are the avenues open to you for solving the problem of income upon retirement if you will but realistically plan and prepare.

Planning Your Location

Retirement planning also includes the matter of location, where you want to live upon retiring. In the United States many retirees move to some state that has a favorable climate, such as Florida, California or Arizona. Thereby they not only escape the rigors of winter weather, which bring great discomfort to all old folk, but most likely also effect a saving on fuel and clothing bills.

A number of individuals move to Latin-American countries when they retire. In this way they are able to enjoy not only a mild tropical climate but also an economic advantage that such dollar-hungry countries offer retirees in the form of a tax-free status. Those of Jehovah’s witnesses who have taken advantage of such retirement offers enjoy the added opportunity of taking the ‘good news of God’s kingdom’ to these countries where the need is perhaps greater than ‘back home.’

To save on both work and expenses it may also be advisable to move to a smaller house or apartment. But there is something to be said against moving into a settlement consisting entirely of retirees. At least that is what certain European social planners have found. One would also do well to consider the relative advantages and disadvantages of living in the city, in the suburbs or in the country. Among other factors to consider are those of transportation and nearness to one’s friends and relatives, to one’s place of worship and to shopping centers.

Keeping Well Though Retired

Once having retired, of prime importance is your health. Who wants to die? Health both makes you want to live and enables you to live as long as possible. Your two main concerns as regards physical health are diet and exercise, activity. As you get older you will need less food and specially so since most likely you will lead a less active life. But if you have time on your hands and lack interests, you may be eating more instead of less and so hurry yourself to an early grave.

However, if you are living alone, the opposite might be your problem. It has been said that for a man to enjoy his meals he must have someone to cook for him, and for a woman to enjoy eating she must have someone for whom she can cook. If you are living alone you may not be taking in sufficient nourishing food. Make certain that you get enough protein and also vitamins and minerals. You might get enough of the latter in fruits and vegetables but, then again, you might find that you benefit from taking supplements of these.

Just as important as the right diet, if not more so, is getting sufficient exercise. Thus the chairman of the American Medical Association’s Committee on Aging once stated: “Idleness can kill. . . . When you retire, you quit and go home. And that is when the problems start.” That those who keep active after sixty-five live longer is the conclusion reached by Dr. R. M. Hamblin, a research scientist who conducted a study on the subject for the United States Veterans Administration. One who expressed similar sentiments was the late Dr. J. F. Montague, a prominent authority on intestinal and stomach disorders. He continued active until he died, well along in his seventies. He held that a robust and healthy man should “never retire.” Instead, he said, “a man may withdraw his activities into those that are less arduous and more pleasing to him, but I don’t think a man should ever retire.” In this regard it has been observed that God said nothing to Adam in the garden of Eden about retiring. He was to keep working “until you return to the ground.”​—Gen. 2:15; 3:17-19.

You simply must get some physical activity if you are to stay well after retiring. This can be in the form of some kind of exercise, such as swimming or walking or knocking a little ball around a golf course. It would be ideal, of course, if you could get your activity as a by-product of doing something useful or purposeful. That such activity might be even more effective in avoiding heart attacks than watching one’s diet is the opinion expressed by Dr. Walter C. Alvarez, noted medical author. He says: “Perhaps walking a mile a day would help [a man] more than being starved. . . . the worst thing a person past middle age can do is not to exercise enough. Perhaps our enemy is not so much gluttony as sloth.”

Keeping Young in Spirit

Physical well-being, however, is only one side of the coin. The other side is mental and emotional well-being, keeping young in spirit. That requires that you have interests; that you keep being curious, wanting to learn and being concerned, wanting to do things. That these qualities can extend into old age was shown by an article that appeared in the New York Times, January 23, 1974, and which was entitled: “Old Age: A Case of Spirit, Not Chronology.” It told of five New York women, all over seventy-five years old, who were leading busy, rich and full lives. One travels, entertaining women’s clubs, college and church groups by telling stories; another is out entertaining guests six or seven nights a week and is learning Spanish; another does volunteer work with youngsters two days a week and does not mind walking three miles to do it; and so forth. As one of them put it: “I’m too interested in the things I’m doing to have time to be old.”

Yes, those concerned with improving the lot of retirees stress keeping up your interest and curiosity in things. They report that many retired persons who complain of being bored often are just too lazy to do something to make life interesting for themselves and of benefit to others. Thus some who complained of being bored were too lazy to visit the senior citizens center even though it was within walking distance. And when they were offered rewarding and not at all too strenuous things to do, they claimed that they were too busy​—too busy doing what? Nothing but idling around!

The fact is that you cannot spend all your time in recreation any more than you can spend all your time eating or resting and sleeping. These are merely means to an end. That is why one retired professor of medicine objects to the very word “retirement,” which means to withdraw or retreat and suggests doing nothing. In its place he would substitute the expression “the Elective Years,” in that then one is free to elect or choose what one would do, as well as when and how much of it to do.

Love of God and of Neighbor

Those whose profession is to help to make retired persons more happy and contented tell that the most unhappy retirees are those who lead extremely selfish, self-centered lives; those whose chief concerns are materialistic. Now​—no longer able to pursue their greedy goals—​they must learn to think of others if they would be happy and contented. It has been said that the most important words for the retiree are “Keep busy.” But it must be at something rewarding, for the Creator gave us a moral sense, a conscience, the ability to reason and make right decisions. The doctor who at ninety-one years still keeps making house calls illustrates that point. He certainly has no financial need, but his heart and his mind require him to keep serving others. Confirming this, Dr. Hamblin stated that retired people live as long as they feel they are needed.

Making the same point is retired, onetime public relations man Henry Legler. In his book How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life, he says: “The retiree who opens his mind and his heart to some form of church or community service can find satisfactions that are far more enduring than the triumphs of a business career.” Incidentally, he speaks from experience.

And that ‘man does not live by bread alone,’ but has spiritual needs also has been noted by the Great Teacher, Jesus. (Luke 4:4) Thus we are told that “the White House Conference on Aging has suggested that the churches​—which may be doing more for the aged than any other organization—​are not doing enough . . . The churches, the report hinted, are taking better care of the social needs of the elderly than of their spiritual needs. They are providing lectures, movies, bus tours and church suppers, but are doing too little in the area of ‘nourishing the spiritual life of our older population.’”​—The Cleveland Press, January 5, 1974.

But there is one religious group that is not making. this mistake, namely, the Christian witnesses of Jehovah. They stress the spiritual side of life: personal Bible study, attending Christian meetings, serving God and man. Far from being bored, retirees who are Witnesses are happy, busy and productive. At the headquarters of the Watch Tower Society there are some forty members who are more than sixty-five years old, thirteen of them being over eighty years old. These continue to work a number of hours each day and are happy doing it, for their spiritual needs are well taken care of. Similarly, some 5 percent of the 20,000 full-time pioneer ministers in the United States are over sixty-five years old. One of these, who died in 1973, had kept busy until she was ninety-nine years old!

Yes, you can make “the rest of your life the best of your life.” But it requires preparing and planning, giving thought to practical factors such as income, location and physical well-being. And, above all, it requires giving unselfish service to God and your fellowman.