Seniors - This is not your father's retirement

Today, this is not your father’s retirement, especially if you are 65 years old and about to cash your first Social Security check. When your father retired, he might have been looking at approximately 20 years of rest and relaxation, maybe a few months in Florida every winter, playing some golf and shuffleboard and bingo once a week. In other words, cashing his first Social Security check was like signing up for summer camp.

For me, it is difficult to imagine 30 years of shuffleboard and bingo as a steady diet. (Remember, I am the one who makes a list of things to do on a daily basis that couldn’t possibly be completed in the current 24-hour day).

So what do you see when you look out on the big horizon of retirement? Are you wearing rose-colored glasses, or are you wearing horse blinders or are you peering through binoculars with supreme quality resolution? If you are wearing rose-colored glasses, you are probably seeing a retirement of smooth sailing financially, of good health and lots of fun and easy times. Nothing wrong with that. Good luck and enjoy.

If you have chosen to wear horse blinders, then it’s all plowing ahead for you with a very specific, but narrow vision. I hope you don’t get bored during the next 30 years.

But if you are using binoculars with supreme quality resolution, you may see a vast world out there with many possibilities. Or you may even be seeing beyond your own horizon to the years to come when your grandchildren will inherit the earth. If that is what you see, then you must know that today's world needs you.

Today’s world needs your wisdom and your experience, but most of all your passion. We need you to direct your passion, whatever it may be, to help make this a better place for all of us.

Last week, while vacationing in the Berkshires, I attended a lecture given by John Perkins, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. John is about to become a grandfather and is very hopeful that whatever appears to spell doomsday for our grandchildren can be turned around. He challenged the audience (many with snow on the top of their heads) to find a passion, to follow it and to stimulate change that will create “…a stable, sustainable and peaceful world for future generations.”

Let’s retire the word retirement. The old retirement doesn’t apply to us or to you. We can turn the new retirement into a call to action, spending some of our time volunteering, working for the political party of our choice, helping to beautify our neighborhoods, mentoring school children, recycling, carpooling… you know what to do.

But most of all, make a choice to serve, to act and to put your passion to work, rather than leaving your life and that of your grandchildren to chance.