Retirement

Retirement - What a negative word! Each part of this word is designed to put us down. Retire - go to bed and sleep; tire - wear out or wear down; ment - a suffix which changes a verb to a noun, an action to a thing! It's all wrong! What this stage in our lives should be called is emancipation - a release from slavery or restraint, a setting free!
We spent years in school learning to work, then more years at work learning to work more efficiently. Why couldn't some of this learning have been extended to our emancipation?
If you've been lucky, your employer provided you with a day or two off to attend a retirement seminar; if you've been lucky, you've also run across one of the magazines for the "mature" that try to point the newly emancipated in the right direction, but basically, you're on your own!
Where are the goals? From the time we learn how to talk we are taught about our role in society: get an education, get a job, get a spouse, get a house, get children, get a bigger house. But what about now? Is it "get out of the way" or are we able to make it "get a Life"
MORE TOMORROW