An avatar of grapes
Grapes, by itself, are fruit fit for a sage or fermented to an exotic beverage, a wine maturing with age. Whichever be its derivative, the fact remains that, it will still be just grape.
A Good Question
The plan on how to retire and what to do with your time after retirement is never quite on anyone’s mind. If you are still employed or actively engaged in earning a living just ask yourself this-what are you going to do when you stop working? People strive only to attain financial security for their grand retirement, without having any real plans on what to do when they arrive at it. What just exactly is retirement?
We shape our destiny
In our journey from adulthood to the unknown future, there are several phases we pass through. But one thing for certain is that, whether we move forward or stand still, it is definitely not due to the design of destiny. Instead, it is an outcome that is either inspired by our aspirations and desires or just a serious lack of it. Taking charge of shaping our future and no chance to leave it to fate is a more positive attitude in life.
Only Human
We keep putting on hold the exciting things we tell ourselves that we have to do and keep adding them to our ‘’must do that, Wishlist’’.
It is good to record the date of entry of the desired action on your wish list, you will have a good laugh when you check your wish list to find that how much time has passed by from your last unfulfilled wish. Your list can be now called as a “yet to do list’’.
Our poor fathers and theirs before them have always wrongly assumed that retirement would mean, time well spent with their grandchildren and time to gracefully receive attention from their own children.
Usually all that goes down well if everything fits into the grand plan but unfortunately most of the time it doesn’t. Children and grandchildren will have their own plans which may not include the retiree or fit into his.
If you do not have a spouse or companion and have second guessed retirement without a plan or have great expectations on your children to manage your retirement for you, be warned that if ill health doesn’t consume you, boredom surely will.
Nature’s 101
Birds once learnt to fly never comes back to the parent nest, not even for Christmas. We can learn so much from the animal kingdom about family and attachment, how they care for their young and detach as soon as their offsprings are old enough to fend for themselves. Can we do this?
The human mind has a strong affiliation towards attachments. If we look at ourselves critically, you will find that attachments control us with an overwhelming magnitude that, it seems to be the only thing that the human race, races for.
Detachment creates a reassuring independence. If one sees attachment as luggage, then there will be an overload of it, if there is an affinity to attachments. Its maintenance while lugging it around will be a tremendous burden restricting one’s space and freedom.
Definition of Retirement
While nature is guided by its own laws we have man creating many without the revision of almost any. Out of all the laws defined we have the written law of retirement with some variance of the retiring age going by different countries.
Of the many transitions we evolve through in life, retirement is the most miserable one that the human ego can undergo; it is a stigma barcoded onto a person as being less productive, less competitive, ancient and archived. It is done so automatically by King Country, family and friends. This is that final lap you do around the block before the details of your sudden non-existence is gloriously announced with some niceties; a dignified photo and the details of your departure to a new address in a special column of the Newspapers, that one just before the beginning of the sports column.
Redefining retirement
Today knowledge is readily accessible and nothing else other than an internet connection is needed to jump-start a new hobby or take courses befitting your interests.
Learning today is not as hard as it was before a decade ago, communications and technology ever improving by leaps and bounds makes it possible to access information, make transactions, conduct business, be entertained and being able to do plenty more even without getting up from your rocking chair, provided you are seated on one after retirement.
Retirement should not mean shutting down, but instead, it should be interpreted as a transformation, a rejuvenated avatar reaching an age with a definitive distinction of maturity, being sure that knowledge connects everything and that there is an ocean of choices to choose from with even more to do now than ever before.
My fast forwarded redefined retirement
I have not yet retired as my age doesn’t quite reflect the equivalent predetermined by society for it, but in defiance to that, I have put some plans together after making a major adjustment to my otherwise ordinary human life, I have begun to look at life from a different perspective and am now left with the task of swinging these plans into action. I have prematurely opted for a redefined retirement because of the wonderful agenda my plan comes with. Most importantly I am travelling light reducing my baggage with time.
I have been getting some heat from several quarters by making this choice because of its unorthodox nature but I know that things will fall into place with time.
Major changes out of the norm constitute damages which inevitably evolve into ‘’the sacrificial lamb’’ being the main course on the menu with the only concession of getting to choose how it is going to be served on your plate.
Like the versatility of grape being fresh or fermented, redefining retirement as a fermentation of life through time, refining us to become finer with time and without any lease of restriction making it very much a freehold life or rather no retirement.
Age is only a statistic and should not be misconstrued as a start or a stop to achievements only death should retire you.
EDit
APRIL 28, 2014