This article covers two subjects near and dear to my heart. How retirement can be looked upon as a good thing and how we need funny, if not wild and wacky things in our lives in order to cope with some of the craziness happening in the world today. First, I will talk about retirement which is the serious side of the article. Second, I wrap up the article by talking about news headlines and how those headlines could be written to make us smile if not laugh so as to get a brief respite from all the negativity we read about when reading the news. Hopefully by the end of the article you will be smiling and quite possibly laughing (I hope so).

I am surprised at how many individuals enter into retirement and then shortly thereafter write and post about the fact that they are bored out of their minds and do not know what to do with all the extra time they now have on their hands. Here is my question to those retirees: What did you do when you worked? Easy answer, you had something to do with your time and that is what occupied your time. So, now you must find something different to do with your time. A quote by Jack Welch goes as follows:

“Control your own destiny or someone else will.”

True, life does not always give us what we plan for. As with life, so it is with retirement and that is, sometimes we get the complete opposite of what we might have expected. My educated guess is that in many instances, being over the age of 65, this happens more often than not! But we need to look at retirement as we did when we started our first job – it was a new adventure. One you didn’t know a thing about back then. But guess what – you made a career out of it and put in your time so to speak. Retirement is now the time to reap the benefits of all those working years.

My situation was similar to many others. Forced into retirement at age 55 (down-sized out of a 25-year career with the same company). Fortunately, I found another job but got down-sized out of that job nine months later. We sat down, looked at our options and took it as a sign. Decided to down-size ourselves and enjoy life. Had several part-time jobs (cashier at a well-known amusement park), wrote insurance curriculum (my career was in insurance) and taught online insurance classes for ten years. The neat part of going to these jobs was that we were doing something we liked doing and agreed that should the job ever not be fun – we would just walk away from them. Fact was we loved every minute of it. Eventually the time came that we – how does that saying go – hung it up permanently and yes, we “RETIRED!”

Remember, once you retire, you are free to follow your dreams and utilize that time doing that which pleases and makes you happy.

I like to create/write funny articles and so I am going to switch gears here. Think about the headlines we usually read in our daily newspaper while enjoying our morning cup of coffee. I don’t know about you folks, but personally, I think it would be nice to see a different and perhaps unique set of headlines as opposed to the rhetoric seen repeatedly as we savor that first morning cup of coffee.
I mean how often do they have to tell us “so and so did what.” Most headlines today are either tragic or downright negative. Where’s the fun in that? Seeing that I am a card-carrying member of the over age 65 group, wouldn’t it be neat to see funnier headlines than what we are seeing and reading today? Headlines such as:

Eight people in their 80s spend day together and never once mention arthritis and back pain.

Seventy year-old Farmer collects and turns cow poo into bricks and builds new barn for cows.

Ninety – year old man asks waitress at local coffee shop: “Do I come here often?”

Elderly couple declared missing shortly after children return to empty nest.

Bet you are smiling! Smiling first thing in the morning while having our coffee can go a long way towards making our day better.

So I ask again: “Are you smiling?” Yes! Good, then my work here is done.

Until next time!