Emancipated Living
“I think the notion of retiring makes people old.” – Penelope Russianoff
I have been patiently awaiting the debut of the movie, Brokeback Mountain. In preparation for its arrival, I had printed the Annie Proulx short story that it’s based on and included it as part of my “fun” reading stack for this business trip.
So after savoring the raw devotion of gay cowboys, it was a bit of a stretch to call the rest of my inflight reading material the “fun” stack. However, upon enjoying an appropriate beverage, I was in a better frame of mind to make the transition from fiction to nonfiction. After all, it’s Friday and I’ve hardly had a moment of personal time to post this week. Time to get cracking.
Ameriprise Financial is running an ad campaign that poses this thought and question… Retirement is like a second childhood. Now, what do you really want to be when you grow up? Mitch Anthony in the New Rertirementality explains that, “Most people don’t really want retirement as we know it. What they want is freedom to pursue their own goals and interests.”
“When people talk today of retiring, they are rarely speaking of retired living; they are usually speaking of emancipated living. They want to be free to pursue their goals, at their pace, and free to find a sense of balance in their lives.”
But this requires a shift in the retirement paradigm and how we prepare for it. “Retirement is an unnatural condition. Even if you can afford to retire, the worse thing you can do is withdraw completely from the race. Retirement is an illusion because those that can afford the illusion are disillusioned by it and those who cannot afford the illusion are haunted by it.”
Marc Eisenson, author of Invest in Yourself, Six Secrets to a Rich Life, writes, “Once we become adults, we often lose track of life’s simple pleasures and of our own personal goals. While we may obsess about how unhappy we are, we don’t focus clearly on what we can do to change the situation: on how we invest our time, energy and yes, our money to consciously create the life we want.”
I guess the moral of the story is just do it. But do it now. Are we really just saving for a rainy day? We’re saving and investing for a reason. Maybe it’s time to look at what we think the destination is and make the day-to-day trip a bit more about enjoying today.
I have been patiently awaiting the debut of the movie, Brokeback Mountain. In preparation for its arrival, I had printed the Annie Proulx short story that it’s based on and included it as part of my “fun” reading stack for this business trip.
So after savoring the raw devotion of gay cowboys, it was a bit of a stretch to call the rest of my inflight reading material the “fun” stack. However, upon enjoying an appropriate beverage, I was in a better frame of mind to make the transition from fiction to nonfiction. After all, it’s Friday and I’ve hardly had a moment of personal time to post this week. Time to get cracking.
Ameriprise Financial is running an ad campaign that poses this thought and question… Retirement is like a second childhood. Now, what do you really want to be when you grow up? Mitch Anthony in the New Rertirementality explains that, “Most people don’t really want retirement as we know it. What they want is freedom to pursue their own goals and interests.”
“When people talk today of retiring, they are rarely speaking of retired living; they are usually speaking of emancipated living. They want to be free to pursue their goals, at their pace, and free to find a sense of balance in their lives.”
But this requires a shift in the retirement paradigm and how we prepare for it. “Retirement is an unnatural condition. Even if you can afford to retire, the worse thing you can do is withdraw completely from the race. Retirement is an illusion because those that can afford the illusion are disillusioned by it and those who cannot afford the illusion are haunted by it.”
Marc Eisenson, author of Invest in Yourself, Six Secrets to a Rich Life, writes, “Once we become adults, we often lose track of life’s simple pleasures and of our own personal goals. While we may obsess about how unhappy we are, we don’t focus clearly on what we can do to change the situation: on how we invest our time, energy and yes, our money to consciously create the life we want.”
I guess the moral of the story is just do it. But do it now. Are we really just saving for a rainy day? We’re saving and investing for a reason. Maybe it’s time to look at what we think the destination is and make the day-to-day trip a bit more about enjoying today.
posted by Nina Smith at 9:20 PM
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