Get With the Program.

Old Worms. New Fish. How Does Retirement Find New Reference?

Old Worms! Past Notions!

New Fish! Fresh Ideas!

It may take some years to truly get past notions on retirement, to hook into fresh ideas. As long as we hear people talk about demanding work environments and end that stressful discussion with the old worm phrase - ”I’m just counting the days ‘til I retire!”, do you suppose new fish will fly or fry?

The old fish still swim into financial planning waters. Just count the retirement planning books and programs on the market. Of course planning for later life does require the basic grasp of health and wealth issues. But just once it would be refreshing to see new fish swimming first.

Retirement is not the warm destination we continue to make it be. “Counting the days ‘til I retire!” What and where are we running to with that phrase? Ask an 80 something person in a long term health care facility how they counted their days ‘til retirement?

If the pace of working in the organizational world is that demanding and you are going to worm your way through it for the next 7 or 11 years, how would it be you take time right now to catch some fresh fish? How far ashore are you from 80 or 90? Twenty, twenty-five, thirty years?

Fresh fish is working on a strategic plan for the integration of work, community action, personal desires, learning and relationship building for later life. It’s not about retirement. It’s about renewal or a “reprise” of the career (life’s journey) you created over many years up to now.

Many will say including me that we shouldn’t use the worm “retirement” to spread the good news about later life careers (journeys). Well in order to catch new fish, I’ve come to the conclusion we will need to use the old worm, if we want the worm to turn.

It’s hard to erase over 50 years of the industrial age notion of retirement. But the secret to better quality longevity will not be based in the “destination view” of retirement. If you do want a destination, maybe it is the long term health care facility. Check your “health and wealth plan” as frequently as you need, but the active plan for later life, “the integration plan” is the one water that fresh fish will survive in much more freely and keep you from “counting the days”!

For more information or work on an “integration plan”, stay tuned or better still - hire Change Rangers to help you turn the worm!