This March I hit the milestone of turning 60. It’s been quite a ride. And it seems appropriate to pass on some thoughts on life to others.
I tell my kids 3 things that they should do in life. These are not hard or difficult to do, it’s the doing them that is the hard part.
Save more Money. Seems simple enough and we’ve all heard variations on this likely throughout our lives. The issue is you don’t really understand how important this is until you are in your older years. Like I am now. Retirement is all about being able to afford it, it has very little to do with how old you are. The money you have saved, be it 401Ks, IRAs, savings accounts and so on, is key. It doesn’t take a financial genius to know the more money you have, the more options you will have when the time comes.
Don’t change Jobs/Companies too much. As I look back, I did stay in my career path all along, but I believe I may have switched companies more than I should have. This is a tough one of course, there can be very good reasons to move. This also reflects on my first bit, saving money. Staying with a company that provides retirement benefits for longer can mean more money saved for the retirement time. I moved to some small companies over time and the immediate pay increase was good, however in the long run I ended up behind the curve for this thing called retirement. Of course, had I put away more of the increase of money, then I would be in a better place. Also, things are quite different now. When I first started working, there were these things called pension plans. Those are pretty much like the dinosaurs, now it’s all about managing a 401K or like which can be portable.
Keep in contact with folks. The folks I kept in contact with did help me in many ways over time, and I hope I have helped them in return. I do wonder about some of the folks that I didn’t keep in contact with, if things might be better for both them and me. We are herd animals after all, so getting thru this thing called life, we need others to help us along. Having folks to chat with about life and work events is a great thing. You never know when a call to a friend can help lift them (and you) up out of a bad moment in life.
One thing I will add to my advice for my kids is to keep yourself physically fit. This is more about stamina and not so much about being ripped. Like being able to walk a good distance at a good pace and not being exhausted. For me at 60 I shoot for something like 15-18 minutes for a 1 mile walk. A case in point, I have recently been helping my 82-year-old father thru a surgery and I can see that his lack of physical fitness (stamina) has made his recovery much more difficult.
Another seemingly small thing, have a hobby you can do when your older and can’t move about as well as you did when you were younger and more agile. It’s great to have a physical hobby like jogging or playing a sport. But what happens if you are bed ridden for a while; recovering from an injury or a surgery? Like my dad is right now. Recovery time is longer the older you get; shocking I know. Or you just can no longer do that physical activity anymore? Something like reading, building a puzzle, sudoku, or crossword might be all you can do. Playing games is also great. There are thousands of great games out there from large strategy games to small adventure games. These can be card based, hex and counter, dice, miniatures and all kinds of different styles. Many can be played solo and with other folks. There are a lot of themes for these games as well, war games (historical and fictional), racing, sports, firefighting, fantasy, science fiction, trains, super heroes, and so on. Yes, I’m a huge gamer. I have more games than a rational person should have. But I’m hopeful that when I get to retirement, I’ll have the time to play these games. The picture in this post is most of my games, but not all.
I hope those of you who read this thru will take these words of advice and fit them into your life in the way that works for you.
