To retire or not, and when to retire?
“Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.” Robert Orben
“I want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life!” Henry D. Thoreau
"What do you do?" is a common question asked in a social gathering. When you're working the answer is easy. Saying that saying "I'm retired" doesn’t sound good when you still look young. By the way, “young” means you are still below the retirement age of 65 in most western societies. Then comes the inevitable, "So what do you do all day during your retirement?” Actually, that follow up question gets to the heart of the retirement dilemma for many. I'm hoping the answer isn't watching 6 hours of TV and taking naps. But, what exactly do we do to make the best use of our time, energy, and talents?
Let us assume that we have attained financial freedom and have enough money to last for twenty or more years during our retirement, leading a life of your choice. You may like to read the following link about if you have adequate financial resources to retire now in the following link:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/49384.jsp
We still have to answer the concern of how are we going to spend the time? Actually this depend on individual and each and every one of us should have control of his own destination.
To retire happily, I believe first and foremost is one must have a hobby and interest in something. I have a friend who has retired and spending whole day and everyday doing gardening (not my cup of tea). He enjoys it very much. One likes fishing and he bought a boat for fishing in the deep sea. The problem is getting keen kakis to go with him. Another friend of mine like trampling. He goes round everywhere in beautiful forest reserves and national parks to tramp with his group of kakis. Another loves karaoke and he has two sets in his house, although he doesn’t sing well at all. He also likes to watch all kinds of sports in TV, golf, billiard, tennis, darts, soccer, etc. A couple of my other friends and their wife go ballroom dancing every week.
Many retirees enjoy playing golf three of four times a week. Walking 7-8 kilometres in the golf course is a good exercise and spend the time. Besides golfing can maintain one’s social life, keeping inform of things around us, and have some cheap excitement with some small bets. Going everywhere to play different courses is a joy for many keen golfers. One can really while away a lot of time, and hopefully happily and fruitfully in the golf courses. Golf is about the only sport one can still engage in even if he is already in the eighties.
What about travelling around the world with your spouse and seeing interesting places, beautiful sceneries and different culture? Have you done cruise around the Lake districts in Italy? The Silk Road, Safari, 張家界, 張家界, Bungee jump in Queenstown, NZ, Taman Negara, Sarawak Muru Caves and Mount Kinabalu etc? But make sure you got loads of retirement money and read the same link above regarding if you have enough money.
What about learning some new skills; reading and learning investment skills from books, online resources, or even go for a course? Isn’t finance and investment skills very useful for our everyday life? Often spending time analyzing financial statement and doing valuation can be very interesting. What about reading books about War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy? The histories of all the old empires (Roman, Egyptian, French, German, Genghis Khan, British etc) and about world wars, The Three kingdoms in China, Sze Jee (History of olden China), The Water Margin, The Chamber of Red Lotus (?), The Memoir of Lee Kuan Yew or Mahathir etc. Haven’t you missed this for a long time already since started a busy career? Game for writing a book about your life and experience, and start a blog etc? What about teaching others some useful skills such as finance and investment, helping many novice avoiding pitfalls and make some extra-ordinary return from the equity market, while you can earn a little income? Is your time enough to do all these?
One other major concern of retiring is how one and his family members can cope with this sudden change. Many of you may have been working in the corporate world and mostly already in high positions in the company. Can one copes with his sudden loss of self-identity and self-worth? Can the spouse (normally the wife as women usually retire earlier than men) afraid that he will “disturb her peacefully life”; asking her to prepare this or that for him to eat while being a couch potato? Will he be always fighting with her to watch each other’s favourite TV programmes, the Korean sabun? Will the children feel that dad is always kachauing them; nagging, and keep on repeating things without knowing himself? Can his wife stands what other lady friends are talking about how successful their husbands’ career or businesses are, the big car or house they have bought; comparing this and that with Ah Fatt and Ah Choi, but her “man” is shaking his balls and doing nothing at home, at this “young” age?
So before retiring, one has to think about if it is acceptable with everyone, what is he going to do, discuss with family members and sort them out before he can enjoy a satisfying retirement. Failure to do so may severely strain a relationship and makes one regrets of his action later. For those who have no spouse nor children, you are luckier, you have more freedom. Friends are then the most valuable assets to have for all of us, but be sure your friends who have their own family, or are still working, have time for you.
In conclusions, one needs not to retire if he enjoys his work and can make more money to enjoy life and leave some inheritance to our children, besides carrying on contributing to the society. But if he dread to go to work every day and find that thinks that he may expire soon and likes to pursue other more interesting things, he should do some pre-retirement due diligence before retire, financially and non-financially. I believe that if he is proactive, he can find many things to do and may find retirement life a fulfilling and satisfying one.
by:K C Chong
