I met Louis Mack of
Boise, Idaho, on Boomer Café (click here) and I was immediately fascinated by this true “hippy at heart” who is getting
close to retirement himself. His specialty? As Boomer Café tells it, it’s New
Age retirement for the Woodstock Generation.
Here’s his advice:
If you grew up during the “Age of Aquarius”
within the epicenter of the 1960’s counter-cultural movement, your memories of the
hippie subculture and the society in which they protested may be hazy. Yet
those memories remain etched in our memories as a period of freedom and change
that revolutionized the world. As children of this cultural phenomenon, we not
only broke away from our parents authoritative rules in exchange for non-
conformity but set the stage for social change while throwing the rules of sex,
drugs and rock & roll out the window. Like with all things though, the natural ebb
and flow of daily life has a way of catching up to all of us.
Bob Dylan said it best, “The times, they
are a changing.” Today, the Woodstock generation is transitioning
once again, and many of us are choosing to go back to our care-free roots now
that retirement is upon us. Baby boomers everywhere are reflecting upon their
lives by making the decision to make the best out of the time they have left.
Seeking the adventure their spirits yearn for, many are choosing to expand
their horizons and consider new retirement options. With a natural curiosity and
a hunger for discovery, many baby boomers are choosing to declutter
their lives, and overcome the barriers of traditional retirement by moving abroad,
or tossing aside the traditional concept of retirement communities in exchange
for nomadic lifestyles and communal groups.
Who doesn't remember the Jefferson Airplane's 'Summer of Love' song, reminding us pointedly that "even though those times are gone the spirit still goes on..." That's the Boomer spirit!
While young at heart, the journey from
one’s adulthood to retirement can be one of life’s greatest transitions. It can
be hard to accept the fact that we’ve gotten older. Between the guilty
conscious of not watching our grandchildren grow up, along with the burden of
the legacy we leave our loved ones, retirement can be full of difficult decisions
when faced with the inevitability of new, and often scary possibilities. This often
leaves us feeling both exhilarated, and depressed. Not only do the choices we
make now affect those around us but the rest of our lives as well.
When planning your retirement, it’s
critical you factor in how you will spend your time, and what you want to do. Accept
the energy around you.
What are your dreams, and goals? Think of retirement as
a process, not an end.
While there are a lot of changes in front of you, there
are also countless possibilities. Transitioning into the unknown requires us to
overcome our fear of change. It’s okay to be nervous; many retirees find that
while they have a sense of anticipation when it comes to the thought of
retirement, they also worry about having enough money to sustain them.
Make a plan. Although it can seem slightly
overwhelming at first, a little research can go a long way in providing you
with basic assessments, and peace of mind when it comes to daunting questions
about the future.
Retirement intimidates everyone. Relax. In the process of winding down from
our careers we start to question what we’re giving up and what we’ve
accomplished.
In time we come to realize that none of this nonsense really
matters. We are NOT married to our jobs. Retirement provides us with the
opportunity of truly finding ourselves instead of being defined by our careers.
It also provides us with the time to do what we really love and what we’ve
always wanted to do.
While 44 years may have passed, the spirit
of the Woodstock nation lives on. Take pride knowing you are part of a
generation that provided the people of America with a voice. Retirement isn’t
an issue unless you make it one. Relax and enjoy what you’ve worked so hard for
all these years.
Remember the past, enjoy the present, and embrace the future.
Louis Mack is a freelance writer and independent
contractor. As an avid traveler he enjoys exploring new places, while dabbling
in creative photography and capturing the world through his lens.
One thing he says sums it all up for me: “We are NOT married to our jobs. Retirement
provides us with the opportunity of truly finding ourselves instead of being
defined by our careers. It also provides us with the time to do what we really
love and what we’ve always wanted to do.”
Precisely. That’s what my boomer novel A Hook in the Sky is all about – a retiree-turned-artist to the dismay of his much younger
wife. But he pursues his dream of becoming an artist even if it destroys his
marriage...How does it all end? With a typical Baby Boomer ending, but no
spoilers, you need to read the book to find out! To get it, click here.
Louis Mack told me, and I quote him, “I am
very interested in the rising popularity and surge in boomer literature. Perhaps
one of these days I'll find the time to write my own novel. It’s always been a
dream of mine. Perhaps a memoir mixed with a little fiction to spice up my
memories...”
Indeed, Louis, you should write up your
memories and tell us how YOU handle retirement in your boomer way, we’d love to hear about it!
 |
| Louis Mack |
Comments
That's a very real danger. And that's the reason why so many people who retire go back to their work place in the role of outside consultants...Often paid very poorly but vastly appreciated by the management, and why not: here they get fantastic advice from a pro at half the price.
This is what happens all the time at the United Nations, I know, I worked there 25 years and saw how many of our colleagues would return to the office on a low-paid consultancy. You could see they preferred that to staying at home. Because they couldn't see themselves as anything else except as a United Nations expert...sad, really.
Needless to say, once I retired, I never went back as a consultant!
We cast off the double standard (in sexual behavior wherein girls should remain chaste and boys should sow their oats frequently and in any field of opportunity). However, instead of holding the boys to a higher standard, we brought the girls down to their standard and ended up with a tsunami of children born to children. That's okay, we then simply dismissed the standard of a two-parent household as old fashioned and out of date. That's worked out well, hasn't it?
We worshiped the goddess of peace at any price. That's worked out well, too, hasn't it? The parents of hippies returned from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific to give birth to hippies. Imagine how disappointed they felt when their children ignored the lessons that the Greatest Generation had learned: That appeasement emboldens tyrants. Even though countless members of their generation succumbed in death camps and on battlefields, those who lived saw their children come to worship at the same alter as those who inspired World War II through appeasement.
We leaned to prize collectivism from the hippies. How ironic that they assembled in communes while those forced into collectives around the world were dying. Indeed, no ideology has amassed a butcher's bill nearly as large as the collectivists during the Twentieth Century. More than one hundred million have been slaughtered by the collectivists - Nazi's, Communists, and Socialists - and still the hippies followed their guiding light.
Now we are encouraged to imagine the wonders that the hippies will bring us in their retirement. Freed from the shackles of mundane middle class serfdom that they took on following their youth, hippies will rise again to show us the way.
I think that they should keep quiet now and enjoy their grandchildren, but please, don't teach them their ways.
But honestly, Jack, how utterly...boring! I'll tell you something - almost a secret - back in those days, I never was into the hippy scene but I did get a kick out of it. It was nice to see people throw off all their shackles. And you know something else? Young people always do that, ALWAYS! My father (who was very conservative) used to tell me that a man had no heart if he didn't start his life on the Left and no intelligence if he didn't end it on the Right...See what I mean? I doubt very much that there will be a hippy way into retirement like you describe it. Not at all. Hippy = young. So it doesn't apply to retirement, full stop.
My web site - mp3 player beste klangqualität (start.djb-architecten.be)
experience daily by reading such pleasant articles.
my web page - übersetzungen schweiz
theme. Did you make this website yourself or did you hire
someone to do it for you? Plz respond as I'm looking to create my own blog and would like to know where u got this from. thanks
my web-site mp3 player vergleichen
My web site :: übersetzung deutsch englisch linguee ()