Not so long ago, there was no such thing as retirement. Most people worked as long as they were able to work productively. Retirement is a relatively new concept born in Germany in the 1880s and became popular in America during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Before the advent of the concept of retirement, old people were not sidelined. Rather, they were greatly valued for their knowledge and experience. They were respected as a resource for their insight, wisdom and common sense.
After remaining fairly constant for most of human history, average human longevity has nearly doubled since the beginning of the idea of retirement. Another thing that remained constant for most of human history was that our population always formed a sort of pyramid with young children making the base and each older cohort serially representing a smaller and smaller unit on top of that. But the population patterns, particularly in developed countries, no longer form a pyramid. There are as many older people as the younger ones. But then, we often pay no heed to these two relevant factors while discussing retirement planning or the golden years of our life.
We need to redefine and reinvent our own concept of retirement to befit our vision of the golden years. Some senior people are retiring old notions of what it means to be retired. They are reinventing retirement to recharge and revitalise their lives. They are pursuing their productive passions that draw on the skills, talents and wisdom they have acquired all through their lives. They are listening to the call of their cherished calling to rediscover retirement. They want to treat, not retreat. They want to rewire, not retire.
But then, many people are not amenable to the new situation. They are not ready to confidently stand up to the pulls and pressures of a phlegmatic society. They don’t realise that retirement is actually the time to put in practice all the lessons learned in their lives. They don’t appreciate that having a constructive mission can make a big difference in their lives.
Your life has no meaning if you are not happy and cannot make others happy. It is not an either/or choice. The right retirement strategy aims at a synergistic approach to seek the both. It expects us to clear the decks at the conceptual level. Otherwise, our unbridled quest for success would only drag us deeper into the retirement dilemmas.
You should treat your retirement decisions just as seriously as any other part of your life. And it is important to be in control of your retirement decisions. This book lets you take responsibility for your future. It aims to create a success-consciousness within you, which empowers you to control your future rather than letting your future control you. It provides enough inputs to enable you to effectively deal with your retirement dilemmas so that you can smartly monitor your future to ensure your wholesome happiness. It helps you explore some pragmatic strategies to exploit your latent talents, which in turn, will help you release the negative, stay positive and enrich your life in the process. You just have to join the dots to figure out the holistic way to health, wealth and happiness.
I dedicate this book to my daughter Priya Sarin, who is yet to start her career but still wanted to redact and edit this retirement manual. I asked her to keep this book simple, practical and just relevant to real retirement issues. We also consciously decided to reiterate a few known points to draw on the power of your sub-conscious with the intention of realising the context-relevant objectives. And to provide purpose, direction and motivation to the readers, Priya added some examples of contemporary illustrious leaders after taking their permission. Instead of hanging their boots or slowing down after formal retirement, these eminent exemplars like Dr. Manmohan Singh, Mr. Narayana Murthy and Mr. Ratan Tata began their next innings with renewed zest and zeal. Even after winding down their careers, they still prefer to stay in the game for the benefit of the society.
The central theme of this book is to encourage people to draw on their abilities to make the most of their professional and personal lives during retirement. The objective is to encourage readers to avail the benefits of working after formal retirement. The credit for many features aimed at improving the psychological impact of the material, at times even at the expense of syntax, goes to my friends who have tested this material and offered their valuable feedback and comments to make this work more practical and useful. The objective is to ensure that it empowers you to manage your future successfully and you are amply motivated to take your retirement decisions realistically and intelligently. Constructive suggestions to further improve the book are most welcome.
I hope it will help you to reflect on your retirement issues and opportunities. I pray that God allows you to change for the better to have a blessed retirement life so that it will be the best part of your life.
Let’s get ready for a great retirement. Let’s reinvent your golden years.