North of 55 - Winning With Age

I never wanted a retirement where I had little to do with all my free time. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine how I would go from a busy career of working for 40+ years, averaging 50 hours a week, to not having to get out of bed in the morning to get something done. I always assumed I would just keep on working, slowly turning down the pace, and easing into retirement when I reached age 70. Well, it didn’t work that way for me…my pre-retirement phase was short-circuited as I mentioned in the first post, and I had considered myself a “reluctant retiree”. How to accommodate this abrupt change from going 60mph every day to “having little to do”? As I write this I also think of all those among us that have been pushed out of their normal routine of going to work every day, and now are faced with “what to do?” or how best to use their free time. I am a hard-core “Type A personality” and simply can’t change my DNA to become a “Type B”. Sure I can relax (if I try), and I can even sit and d...

That Vulcan Salute , made famous by Spock (Leonard Nimoy) in Star Trek, is something I have been thinking about lately. The concept of “living long” as an objective by itself doesn’t interest me too much because as we all know quality is preferred over quantity. I think that is why these two concepts of living long and being prosperous belong together. I am sure "prosperity" means something different for everyone... My view? While my earning years were strong and I was well compensated for my efforts, prosperity seemed to be related to living good, doing and buying what we wanted, and not having to say “no” very often. As I look back on those years, I think we somewhat missed the point. Not that that was a bad way to live, but I think it could have been better in some ways. Now having passed those high earning years, adjusting to a new life as a “reluctantly retired person” in my mid-sixties with a vastly different income stream, and wishing all my children were geographic...