Monday, January 16, 2006

Title: Stop Using The Word Retirement

Author: Randy Gaulding

Article:
Retirement - What does this word mean to you?

If we look up the words retire, retired, retirement, in the
Webster's Dictionary, the meaning is: to withdraw, give up,
retreat, be hidden in seclusion, and to give up on one's
position.

Due to the bombardment of Social Security issues through the
national news media, just about everyone 45 and up, over the
last several months, has been thinking about retirement.

An unsettling statistic that I heard was that over 40% of baby
boomers will not have the income to sustain their retirement.

My experience with retirement and use of the word has been
through my parents who have retired and have been living out
their retirement in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas for the last
25 years. After a long 30 year career with a Fortune 50 company,
my dad was ready to give up his 8 to 5 position and settle into
retirement.

As a fifty-something year old, career-tossed man, I am unable to
say that the same is likely to happen for me. So what are my
choices? Is retirement merely about financial scarcity,
resignation and diminution of life?

The first wave of baby boomers will turn 60 in 2006. The
largest, most demanding, and most examined generation in history
is already facing up to a future that looks nothing like our
parents' second half of life. But if you think about it, neither
did the first half resemble their parents.

Since retirement age cannot or will not look or mean the same
for me as it did with my parents. I'm making the choice to
embrace the second wind I'm getting, in order for the next 30
years to be more exciting, more energetic and more inspiring
than the former years.

Thanks to the medical advances and information about health,
baby boomers can expect to live long lives. So it's no wonder
that many of us are looking for direction to make the extra
years integrated and meaningful.

Watch for a virtual explosion of classes, programs, books, and
discussions on innovative ways to celebrate life all the way
through. I personally do not want to withdraw, hide or even
retreat in my second half of my life. That begins with CHOICE.

I'm calling on an entire generation to join with me to choose to
stop using the word "retirement" and start using words like
"graduation" or "transition", "renaissance" or "fulfillment",
which better frame the concluding years. I propose that we not
define ourselves by limitation, but by our ability to make new
discoveries about ourselves and to renew our minds by saying
"I'm too young to retire!!!"

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Randy Gaulding has been empowering retired professionals to
expand their future and develop their personal effectiveness.

WHY some people are discovering What's Next. FREE course.
"Rewire Don't Retire"

Click Now ==> www.career-builder-retirement.com/ecourse.htm

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