IN THE WORDS OF ROBERT GRAVES, "FAREWELL TO ALL THAT."
I’ve attended a few retirement seminars recently. It seems I’ve reached that time of life. The events were mostly organised by finance brokers and superannuation fund managers and I find I don’t really trust any of them.
Is their advice for my benefit or theirs I keep asking myself? The projections for future retirement wealth seem to be based on assumptions of an unchanging world that does not ring true with my own life experience. After all, I have lived in an era when we never thought the Berlin Wall would fall and yet it did so in spectacular fashion.
The fund managers catch cry, “ Have you got enough or have you have had enough?” has been quoted once too often for its novelty to stay fresh. Yet, it’s a good reflective question I think and just about the only useful thing I got from those talks. Well, as it happens I do seem to have a enough of the “readies”, as my dear long deceased father would have said and I have had just about enough of paid employment as well, so I had better get my act together about this change in life course about to beset me.
I like the anonymity retirement offers but I don’t like the lack of purpose so first up I think I should find one. On the other hand my friend, Gillian, who joyously gave work away three years ago, tells me it takes a year and a half to find your feet beyond those paid work routines. If that’s the case then drifting along a bit rather than having everything planned and in its place might be the way to go.
But then I don’t really know do I because I have never been unemployed in my life. Each day there has been a purpose and an achievement and recognition for a job completed – well quite a lot of the time in the last 45 years anyway. I’ve been lucky. That’s not to say work-life has been a breeze. Rather than mundane, I have had my fair share of performance anxiety along the way. But for all that, the days have been full, my colleagues generous much of the time and the intellectual curiosity first class. I can see around me things that have changed for the better because of my involvement with their development.
The University has generously given me two days off a week in preparation for the big R. It’s amazing how possible it is to fill a day up with trivial things now. Where once the shopping was a quick trip between the office and home at the end of the working day, I can now make a whole morning of it.
I’ve discovered supermarket ails I never knew existed and alternative walking routes home with alleyways and derelict warehouses left over from an industrial age. There is a drop-in centre and internet café just a few hundred meters from my front door I never new existed. Men catch the warmth of the winter sun and share a cigarette around its front door. They seem unfussed by the lack of a day planned out and submitted to an electronic work diary. Perhaps I could learn something from them.
A few months back when the Superannuation Company calculated my index pension I thought I should give myself a dry run and try living off it. Over four months I was well under budget in two and over a little in the other two months. I enjoyed the challenge of recording every purchase on an XL spreadsheet. I’ve invented columns for essentials, treats and bills that once paid cover expenses for a while, like electricity. I’ve even started looking for bargains down those supermarket aisles. They are a tricky lot these supermarket owners, I reckon. Two-day old bread is cheaper but goes stale quicker so it’s not worth buying. On the other hand, there are those specials strategically placed alongside other tempting ‘goodies’ designed, I suppose, to get me to buy more than I need. If one can avoid the temptation there’s a bargain to be had here.
A cat came to live with me recently. It sleeps on the chair beside mine as I tap on the keys of my laptop doing my correspondence first thing in the mornings, a routine I plan to keep going with. It seems content and there is some comfort in having a live being around the house on my off days, or rather days off.
Mr Cat and I have quite a thing going in cold weather. He is like a hot water-bottle on my lap when I decide I need to turn the heating off to conserve the “readies.” And, when we have had enough of heat exchange he heads for a corner of the front veranda and a spot where the sun reaches the wooden boards, there to sun himself unfussed by the meanderings of the day.
Think I'll start a website
[uploaded February 2013]
USE THE TRAVEL STORIES BUTTON ON THE BAR TO ACCESS TRAVEL STORIES BY CONTINENT
Is their advice for my benefit or theirs I keep asking myself? The projections for future retirement wealth seem to be based on assumptions of an unchanging world that does not ring true with my own life experience. After all, I have lived in an era when we never thought the Berlin Wall would fall and yet it did so in spectacular fashion.
The fund managers catch cry, “ Have you got enough or have you have had enough?” has been quoted once too often for its novelty to stay fresh. Yet, it’s a good reflective question I think and just about the only useful thing I got from those talks. Well, as it happens I do seem to have a enough of the “readies”, as my dear long deceased father would have said and I have had just about enough of paid employment as well, so I had better get my act together about this change in life course about to beset me.
I like the anonymity retirement offers but I don’t like the lack of purpose so first up I think I should find one. On the other hand my friend, Gillian, who joyously gave work away three years ago, tells me it takes a year and a half to find your feet beyond those paid work routines. If that’s the case then drifting along a bit rather than having everything planned and in its place might be the way to go.
But then I don’t really know do I because I have never been unemployed in my life. Each day there has been a purpose and an achievement and recognition for a job completed – well quite a lot of the time in the last 45 years anyway. I’ve been lucky. That’s not to say work-life has been a breeze. Rather than mundane, I have had my fair share of performance anxiety along the way. But for all that, the days have been full, my colleagues generous much of the time and the intellectual curiosity first class. I can see around me things that have changed for the better because of my involvement with their development.
The University has generously given me two days off a week in preparation for the big R. It’s amazing how possible it is to fill a day up with trivial things now. Where once the shopping was a quick trip between the office and home at the end of the working day, I can now make a whole morning of it.
I’ve discovered supermarket ails I never knew existed and alternative walking routes home with alleyways and derelict warehouses left over from an industrial age. There is a drop-in centre and internet café just a few hundred meters from my front door I never new existed. Men catch the warmth of the winter sun and share a cigarette around its front door. They seem unfussed by the lack of a day planned out and submitted to an electronic work diary. Perhaps I could learn something from them.
A few months back when the Superannuation Company calculated my index pension I thought I should give myself a dry run and try living off it. Over four months I was well under budget in two and over a little in the other two months. I enjoyed the challenge of recording every purchase on an XL spreadsheet. I’ve invented columns for essentials, treats and bills that once paid cover expenses for a while, like electricity. I’ve even started looking for bargains down those supermarket aisles. They are a tricky lot these supermarket owners, I reckon. Two-day old bread is cheaper but goes stale quicker so it’s not worth buying. On the other hand, there are those specials strategically placed alongside other tempting ‘goodies’ designed, I suppose, to get me to buy more than I need. If one can avoid the temptation there’s a bargain to be had here.
A cat came to live with me recently. It sleeps on the chair beside mine as I tap on the keys of my laptop doing my correspondence first thing in the mornings, a routine I plan to keep going with. It seems content and there is some comfort in having a live being around the house on my off days, or rather days off.
Mr Cat and I have quite a thing going in cold weather. He is like a hot water-bottle on my lap when I decide I need to turn the heating off to conserve the “readies.” And, when we have had enough of heat exchange he heads for a corner of the front veranda and a spot where the sun reaches the wooden boards, there to sun himself unfussed by the meanderings of the day.
Think I'll start a website
[uploaded February 2013]
USE THE TRAVEL STORIES BUTTON ON THE BAR TO ACCESS TRAVEL STORIES BY CONTINENT