Retirement

Happy new year everybody. May 2011 be a better year for all. 

One of my four lovely sisters decided to take early retirement from government health care service beginning this year 2011. She asked for some advise from her elder brother who retired about a year six months earlier. I was quite happy to give her a quick opinion in her Facebook:-

Dear Za,

The key to a happy retirement is to have enough money to live on, but not enough to worry about. I am sure there are more things to do in life than pulling people’s teeth. Hey this is your life. You can now decide to do things your way without having to answer to your head of department or the ministry anymore.

Happy retirement - goodbye to tension and hello to pension.  Ha haa.

Abe Lim

Sunday, 2 January, 2011

However, I decided to add a little bit more in this blog posting:

I have been retired now for a year six months.  Here is what I have learned. While perceptions of retirement vary - all retirement really means is that you don't go to your job anymore.  That is the only universal truth. Otherwise, retirement should not be equated to white hair, rocking chairs, and forgetting where you left your reading glasses or false teeth. Retirement is not another word for getting old, period!

Retirement can be fun. Remember our childhood days. We look forward to the last day of school before the year-end long break. The thrill of having all those months to do anything you always wanted to do. That how retirement should be defined! Period!

In fact, you now have the rest of your life to do things you may have be prevented/delaying to do. Retirement give you the freedom to focus on your passion at your own speed minus your job. It means that what you are doing of all day is exactly what you want to be doing, not what someone else is paying you to be doing.

So you should be waking up at the usual early hour that you had become accustomed to for all those years. Except that now you don’t have to go to work and that is not a dreadful scenario. 

There are many way you can make yourself useful. For example you may want to get involve in voluntary or social works/activities. By doing so you may continue to exercise the wealth of managerial and technical skills acquired of the years, to good use in these organisations. I am sure we all want to live our lives with honour, integrity and dignity. It would be a bonus if we could also be an inspiration to others.