This week, I found the section on retirement interesting. It's a time of life that can be difficult to define because it means so many different things to people, depending on your beliefs and attitude regarding it. In general, retirement in the U.S., was the idea of working for a certain amount of time and then retiring around the age of 65. However, that whole concept changed, due to the downturn of the economy in the early 1990s; people started postponing their retirements and staying in the workforce longer. In my opinion, this isn't the only reason that people are working longer in this day and age. I think a lot of people really enjoy their work, and due to advances in health care, are able to continue working much longer then they used to. I wish I could ask the authors of this text what they would predict the average age of retirement will be 25 years from now. Will it be the norm to see 85 year olds still a part of the workforce?
Regardless of the age people retire, I love to see the ones that really take advantage of their "free time" and fill it up with all sorts of adventures and opportunities, which brings me to my grandma. She retired in her mid-sixties (now she's 92), and started travelling all over the world. When she went to Taiwan she rode an elephant, when she went to Morocco she rode a camel, and while she was in Australia she held a Koala bear and a wombat! In her seventies she was still going on rollercoaster rides! She learned Tai Chi, got a treadmill, and in her eighties she started lifting weights. She even modeled at fashion shows for a store that sold "older women" attire. She is very active in her community and church and volunteers all the time for different things, in fact when I try to plan something with her it's always "wait a minute, let me grab my calendar" because she's so busy! I don't get to see her as often as I like because she lives in Oak Harbor, but when I do visit her, we love to have our little "happy hour", she'll put out some cheese and crackers and we'll have a couple of glasses of wine and talk about life. She's positive, easygoing, kind, loving and every good thing you could say about a person. She's amazing!!
Fortunately, my grandma, has been able to enjoy retirement without having to worry too much about her finances or her health. However, for the ones that do struggle, after reading the article "As Good as it Gets", I wish our country was more like the Netherlands, where they respect and value their elders and take care of them. I think it would be interesting to do further research on different countries and find out what their policies are concerning retirement and how they treat their elderly people versus the U.S.
I loved reading and learning about retirement and how it affects so many different people. I think when we grow up we wan the best in life and we tend to not think about retirement till it is too late then we sit there and think that we should have saved or built something for our selves to do when we grow up...Anyways loved reading about what you thought about it and how you took the reading. loved it great job.
ReplyDeleteI also liked reading about retirement and how different people handle it. since you and ashley both posted about the same thing, it was really interesting to me to see both of your perspectives on it. I agree with you in the fact i wish our country was more like the netherlands. I think that with a better outlook on life people who might be getting into trouble, might have a better path, and might have a better outlook on life.
ReplyDelete