Keeping up work during retirement

[Alan]

I saw this article today about a semi-retired worker in England who planned on working on his 100th birthday until his employer took him out for a birthday trip to his favorite soccer club.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/01/nold01.xml

He tried giving up work at age 97 but after 3 months he was bored and started looking for a new job....

Stories like this should give us all hope.

 

[modhatter]

Very interesting. Goes to show you: Different strokes for different folks. I do think work sometimes helps promote longevity for some folks. Long as your happy.

 

[Alan]

DW assures me that I need to work after RE and I know that she will make sure that I keep busy with some activity or other. Her mother is the one that is the force behind keeping her father active, even though she herself is now house-bound through ill-health. Last week on MSN Messenger with the web-cam he was proudly displaying the cup he and and his partner won at bowls. (he is 82 and as fit as a butcher's dog).

My mother was the same and she my father were involved in community projects, performed and toured with the song & dance club of the over 60's but unfortunately after she died in 1995 my father stopped all his activities and now he is pretty much house bound because he has difficulty walking (peripheral artery disease - he is 81)

 

[retire@40]

...I do think work sometimes helps promote longevity for some folks.  Long as your happy.

The problem is that most times, works sucks the life out of a person.  They spend so much time working that they lose interest in everything else.  So when they stop working, they feel like they stop living. 

It's important never to stop feeling like a kid when you had more things that you wanted to do than you had time to do them.

 

[Alan]

The problem is that most times, works sucks the life out of a person.  They spend so much time working that they lose interest in everything else.  So when they stop working, they feel like they stop living. 

It's important never to stop feeling like a kid when you had more things that you wanted to do than you had time to do them.

That is a great piece of advice. I changed jobs recently within the same company I work for. A young guy (33) who works for me now was very proud of the hours he works to achieve his objectives. He is one the department's brightest and most promising stars but he is in danger of burn-out, so over this last year I have been trying to show him by example how to structure his time better and get a life outside of work. By example he knows that I do my upmost to leave work at 4 every day to go to exercise classes etc - I start work at 7. (We do enough extra work during projects, call outs, travelling on business etc. to give the company it's pound of flesh). If we can't keep up then it is MY responsibility as the manager of the department to hire more people, I will never over-stress my staff if I can avoid it.

He used to play tennis a lot at High School and college so we decided to start playing together to help him get fit again. (he just had an annual medical and he was shocked to see he had put on 15lbs over the year and the doctor told him to exercise more and lose weight). We had our first game tonight (I hadn't played tennis for over 15 years) and even though he was 18 years my junior he was completely bushed after 90 minutes, whereas it was a walk in the park for myself. Game-wise I beat him 6-0, 6-3 but if I can keep him playing regularly he is obviously technically much better than me and will soon excel and beat the cr*p out of me. He seems determined to change his habits and get back to a healthy lifestyle so I've got my fingers crossed.

If I can change the lives of a few folks like this chap before I retire in 3 years then I will be well pleased, and I'd like to stay fit enough to do things like volunteer at the YMCA as a soccer ref for their youth programs.