Retirement from work was traditionally perceived as the resting phase of life mainly due to old age and the challenges it offered to lead an active life. In the last few years, the world has evolved both mentally and technologically. We have progressed significantly as a society with these changing times. Retirement, today is celebrated and considered to be a whole new chapter of well-planned opportunities to live life to its fullest. 

Each phase of life has its own charm but adult life is a rollercoaster ride, full of ups and downs filled with accountabilities and responsibilities leaving one with mixed experiences of happiness and stress as well. The chance to live a stress-free life comes with retirement as you look forward to a new realm filled with opportunities as well as choices to reinvent your life to your liking. Retirement nowadays is seen as the time to bid farewell to the fast-paced lives that you were leading and embrace the new journey ahead as you complete 60 years of life! 

Beauty of Retirement

Retire from work, not from life. What an apt quote by Sukant Ratnakar, a renowned entrepreneur describing retirement. Life is a beautiful gift from God. Everything that you experience and feel can be positive and joyful if you have an optimistic attitude towards life. It all depends on your thought process and mindset. As the saying goes, ’age is just a number’, official retirement age may be 60 years but it doesn’t stop you from being young at heart after 60. Does it?  

Own your Identity

Retirement rebuilds you completely! It’s just like having another shot at life. Hence, you must enter into retired life being healthy, happy, mentally sound, and financially stable. Our independence is our identity. Welcome the retired phase of life with open arms because a host of good things await you. Also, appreciate that you are now free to pursue your dreams and follow your hobbies. Passé are the days when you had to rush back to cater to personal, financial, and professional liabilities. Retirement is the time to enjoy life, spend that precious time with yourself as well as your loved ones, and explore your interests. 

Plans after Retirement

A few years back an ideal retired life was earning enough to pay for children’s education, marriage and save a post-retirement fund. Mostly this fund was a survival kit to combat an unforeseen illness. A lot of retired people, after fulfilling their worldly duties, looked at spending their retired life performing religious duties, stopped engaging in materialistic desires and involved themselves in spirituality. Ideally, these times existed when the world no longer used to offer its seniors a sea of opportunities to stay active. Today is brighter than yesterday and after you retire, life awaits you and you no longer have to live a reclusive life. 

Whether you are young or old, healthy and fit life will always be an asset to keep the time and tide by your side. To stay healthy, having an exercise regime including meditation, yoga, and brisk walking is important. An active lifestyle along with mindful eating is a major step for the elderly population towards leading a healthy life. 

Physical fitness is just one aspect of ensuring a disease-free life. Another crucial part of our lives is keeping ourselves happy and engaged. So, when you wear those walking shoes, don’t forget to carry your wisdom, smile, and laughter to share them with the people you meet on your way. Stay connected with old friends, family members, relatives because indulging in social networking is not only essential to lead a healthy and happy lifestyle but also to keep you young at heart.

Pre-retirement planning is equally important. Like how we save for children’s education and marriage, likewise saving for own selves is prudent. Financial planning is imperative before you retire. You should have enough money, not just for survival but for other unforeseen expenditures or even for exploring your passion areas. This is the time when you should be spending your money wisely and the investments that you conducted so far will reap benefits now! 

There are various eldercare service providers present in the market that offer the requisite physical, mental, and emotional assistance along with medical facilities to senior citizens. They offer various solutions and help surpass the roadblocks that often pose a hindrance to the elderly leading a healthy life. They help to ensure that seniors get what they deserve to live a happy life. 

These eldercare-focused firms not only offer a nurturing ecosystem for the senior citizens but also ensure that they lead fulfilling lives. With their eldercare-centric products, services, and engagement activities; they motivate the elder community to break free from the cage of stereotypes associated with retirement and encourage them to stay active, productive, independent, and joyful even as they age!

Redesign and Reinvent

Seniors must embrace retirement as a transformative phase of their lives. After spending their entire lives fulfilling responsibilities, this is indeed a major transition from being supremely busy to being supremely idle. But at the same time retirement offers them the opportunity to spend life as they want to and spend the valuable time at hand to pursue those activities that they had always wished for. Willingness and intent with an equal amount of planning will make this beautiful phase of life worth waiting for.

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Disclaimer

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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