If you're reading this, you've been starting your day with a quick infusion of coffee for at least 35 years. If you want a long, healthy retirement, this must stop. Not the coffee. You need it now more than ever. When you were working, you could have abstained from coffee. Your competence and experience enabled you to do your work in your sleep. You're new at the retirement game. You need to apply yourself. You don't want to spend your last 30 years of life in a caffeine free stupor. You'll have eternity to switch to Ovaltine.
I'm suggesting, no MANDATING, that you drink coffee differently. You used to "gulp" or "chug" you coffee, both verbs implying speed. You are retired. You may NEVER again perform any activity quickly. "Fast" is a dirty word. You have lots of time. Fill it productively by doing everything slowly. Did you pick up a grande at Starbucks and drink it while walking to the subway? Did you buy a latte and imbibe it while driving? You may NEVER again multitask. You want to enlarge the time spent for each activity, not reduce it. Some multitaskers have been known to return to part time work just to fill their time. Unfortunately, this column is too late for them.
From now on, you will allot 1.5 to 2 hours for your morning coffee. You will need a 16 ounce thermal mug. Unless you used instant coffee(remember, "instant" implies speed,)use whatever method you have always used to make coffee. Decant the coffee to the thermal mug. Move to the couch. The coffee will remain at the boiling point for 27 minutes, during which time you may take only tentative tiny sips. Larger sips will require a 911 call. Watch the Today Show if you're up for news. If it's a retro chuckle you want, "I Dream of Jeannie" is now on TV Land. (Just to be clear, watching mindless TV while eating or drinking does not constitute multitasking. Listening to NPR,on the other hand, is a borderline violation of the no multitasking rule.) At the 28th minute, when the coffee has reached 160 degrees, you may take slightly larger sips. Careful, you don't want a blister on your tongue. After an hour, change the channel. The coffee is now cool enough to drink without fear of an emergency room visit. Savor it while you're planning your day's activities. Lunch? Gastroenterologist? You're retired. The sky's the limit.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Guide to Retirement-Part II-Preparedness
You're ready to retire, but you've heard cautionary tales about people who retire and are dead six months later. You're scared. Don't be. The newly retired deceased("NRD") are no longer with us because they failed to prepare for retirement. Did you take the algebra regents without studying? Of course not. You'd now be in your 44th year of high school. The NRD naively thought they could walk into retirement cold. Instead, they were carried out cold.
The overarching principle of retirement is that the same activities you previously performed while working will now be performed in a manner so different as to be unrecognizable. Because of its importance,we'll start with exercise.
You've reached retirement age so your arteries can't be totally occluded. You must have exercised. Maybe(albeit unlikely) you frequented a gym. Made a sprint for the bus here. Looped an endless circle around Ikea there But have you ever performed a marathon? You will now.The only new equipment you will need is a pedometer.
You will leave the bedroom to do something in the kitchen. You will arrive at the kitchen but forget what it was you came into the kitchen for. You will walk back toward the bedroom hoping the setting will jog your memory. It won't. But you will recall that you left the paper with the movie listings in the living room and you will go to retrieve it. You can't read the listings because your reading glasses are either in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen or your pocketbook. You'll rifle through every room and purse to no avail. Terrific! Look at the pedometer. You've logged 2.3 miles and, almost as good, you found an unexpired 20% off coupon for Filene's basement. To keep fit, you'll perform many repetitions daily. For the metrocard. The cell phone.The Nook. At the end of the day, raise your hands in victory, throw a thermal blanket over your shoulder and meet a friend for a beer. You've completed a marathon. Oh, you can't find your keys? One and 1/2 marathons.
Stay tuned for future columns: "You're Drinking Your Coffee Too Fast," "Appointments Before Noon. NOT" and "Your Cat Is Right; When in Doubt, Nap."
The overarching principle of retirement is that the same activities you previously performed while working will now be performed in a manner so different as to be unrecognizable. Because of its importance,we'll start with exercise.
You've reached retirement age so your arteries can't be totally occluded. You must have exercised. Maybe(albeit unlikely) you frequented a gym. Made a sprint for the bus here. Looped an endless circle around Ikea there But have you ever performed a marathon? You will now.The only new equipment you will need is a pedometer.
You will leave the bedroom to do something in the kitchen. You will arrive at the kitchen but forget what it was you came into the kitchen for. You will walk back toward the bedroom hoping the setting will jog your memory. It won't. But you will recall that you left the paper with the movie listings in the living room and you will go to retrieve it. You can't read the listings because your reading glasses are either in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen or your pocketbook. You'll rifle through every room and purse to no avail. Terrific! Look at the pedometer. You've logged 2.3 miles and, almost as good, you found an unexpired 20% off coupon for Filene's basement. To keep fit, you'll perform many repetitions daily. For the metrocard. The cell phone.The Nook. At the end of the day, raise your hands in victory, throw a thermal blanket over your shoulder and meet a friend for a beer. You've completed a marathon. Oh, you can't find your keys? One and 1/2 marathons.
Stay tuned for future columns: "You're Drinking Your Coffee Too Fast," "Appointments Before Noon. NOT" and "Your Cat Is Right; When in Doubt, Nap."
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Guide to Retirement-Part 1
Planning to retire? Delighted to leave a lifetime of remunerated boredom, but terrified that unpaid, unstructured tedium may be worse? Fret no more. I promise you a perfect retirement, if you commit yourself totally to my program.
Let's start with what you must NOT do.
Do NOT, under any circumstances including, but not limited to an interminable wait for a colonscopy, read AARP Magazine. That publication has a twofold stealth agenda: the deification of productivity and the demonization of sloth. It will seductively suggest that finding a hobby will enrich your life. It won't. If a hobby were enriching, you would have already had one. Needlework will make you blind and, in many cases, produce blood poisoning. Knitting? You'll look like Grandma Moses and be called Madame Defarge. And sports? Pu-lease! Millions who should know that moving faster than a saunter is potentially life threatening drop dead on a shuffleboard court. Even scarier, a poorly placed shuttlecock can take all pleasure out of your declining years. So, no hobbies.
Even more vital, do NOT reinvent yourself. Reinventions are like changed answers on a test--usually wrong. If you always wanted to act, but never had the time, do NOT start now. You are not Betty White. You're convinced there is a Nora Ephron hidden beneath your dour exterior? There isn't, so don't start a blog. Don't even think of taking classes you always wanted to take. You're forgetting that once you graduated, you swore you'd never enter a classroom again. Why do you think NYU School of Continuing Education has a 20 gazillion dollar endowment? Enrolling in an adult education class is like buying a gym membership--you'll be enthusiastic for two weeks, you'll be proud of the new you and by the third week you'll remember that although you really should go, Chanukah is coming in 10 months and you urgently need to polish your menorah.
Lastly, do NOT look for a part time job. If you enjoyed working so much, you wouldn't have retired. You're just scared of free time. Don't fall for the employer who crows "we love older workers." Nobody loves older workers. Even older workers don't love older workers. What the employer loves is someone he can exploit. Who wouldn't want a retired CPA auditing a financial statement for $12 an hour? Trust me, if work sucked when you were earning $100,000 a year, it won't enthrall you at $15,000.
You know what you shouldn't do. You're off to a fine start, but you're probably a bit nervous because you have no affirmative plan. Don't worry. I will provide one. But in the meantime, promise me you will not read any books with the word "Retirement" in the title no matter how authoritative they sound. Not " How To Have A Fulfilling Retirement," not "Retirement And Death-A Road map(including forms for end of life directives) " and not even "What Your Retirement Means for Your Dog." They sound well meaning, but they are the devil's work. Read them and your retirement will be the ninth circle of hell. I promise you heaven.
Let's start with what you must NOT do.
Do NOT, under any circumstances including, but not limited to an interminable wait for a colonscopy, read AARP Magazine. That publication has a twofold stealth agenda: the deification of productivity and the demonization of sloth. It will seductively suggest that finding a hobby will enrich your life. It won't. If a hobby were enriching, you would have already had one. Needlework will make you blind and, in many cases, produce blood poisoning. Knitting? You'll look like Grandma Moses and be called Madame Defarge. And sports? Pu-lease! Millions who should know that moving faster than a saunter is potentially life threatening drop dead on a shuffleboard court. Even scarier, a poorly placed shuttlecock can take all pleasure out of your declining years. So, no hobbies.
Even more vital, do NOT reinvent yourself. Reinventions are like changed answers on a test--usually wrong. If you always wanted to act, but never had the time, do NOT start now. You are not Betty White. You're convinced there is a Nora Ephron hidden beneath your dour exterior? There isn't, so don't start a blog. Don't even think of taking classes you always wanted to take. You're forgetting that once you graduated, you swore you'd never enter a classroom again. Why do you think NYU School of Continuing Education has a 20 gazillion dollar endowment? Enrolling in an adult education class is like buying a gym membership--you'll be enthusiastic for two weeks, you'll be proud of the new you and by the third week you'll remember that although you really should go, Chanukah is coming in 10 months and you urgently need to polish your menorah.
Lastly, do NOT look for a part time job. If you enjoyed working so much, you wouldn't have retired. You're just scared of free time. Don't fall for the employer who crows "we love older workers." Nobody loves older workers. Even older workers don't love older workers. What the employer loves is someone he can exploit. Who wouldn't want a retired CPA auditing a financial statement for $12 an hour? Trust me, if work sucked when you were earning $100,000 a year, it won't enthrall you at $15,000.
You know what you shouldn't do. You're off to a fine start, but you're probably a bit nervous because you have no affirmative plan. Don't worry. I will provide one. But in the meantime, promise me you will not read any books with the word "Retirement" in the title no matter how authoritative they sound. Not " How To Have A Fulfilling Retirement," not "Retirement And Death-A Road map(including forms for end of life directives) " and not even "What Your Retirement Means for Your Dog." They sound well meaning, but they are the devil's work. Read them and your retirement will be the ninth circle of hell. I promise you heaven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)