Welcome to Authentic Retirement

I like to give credit where credit is due, especially when using quotes. In this case, the best I can do is to credit the British Army for the 7Ps:

Proper Planning and Prevention
Prevent Piss Poor Performance.

And, that’s especially true when we consider retirement. 

It’s almost oxymoronic; it’s such a contradiction: In the very first moments of the first day of their freshman orientations to colleges and universities, students hear the age-old refrain “These should be the best, the happiest days of your life.” True. It becomes a contradiction when we realize that one of the most popular courses on many campuses focuses on Death. Yes, Death!

For many, their first assignment will prove to be the most difficult of their college careers: Write your own obituary and the eulogy you would want delivered at your funeral. 

Despite the recent drop in life-expectancy-at-birth due to opioid abuse deaths and rates of suicide among teenagers and young adults, the average American approaching or just reaching retirement age can reasonably expect to live fifteen, twenty or more years. And, those years will write the opening lines of most of their obituaries and eulogies.

In his Apology, Plato cites Socrates as observing, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Happily, when emotionally and practically well-prepared for, retirement is not simply an opportunity to examine life, but to find and give it new meaning, to write the ideal obituary and compose the eulogy in which we can take pride. 

He who dies with the most toys dies. NO. He who dies “happy, joyous and free,” dies well and dies happy, joyous and free.

In the Roman Catholic Church and many of her “Sister Churches” the very last prayer - at the end of the day - is “May the Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.” 

At the end of his speech during the ceremony in which his two jersey numbers were retired, basketball great Kobe Bryant addressed his daughters:

If you do the work, if you work hard enough,
dreams come true… Those times when you get up early
and you work hard, those times that you stay up late
and you work hard, those times when you do
not feel like working, you’re just tired and you
don’t feel like pushing yourself but you do it anyway,
that is actually the dream. That’s the dream.
It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.
If you guys can understand that, then what you will
see happen is that you will not accomplish your dreams,
dreams won’t come true.
Something greater will.

Proper planning and prevention for retirement are designed to afford you a greater retirement, a restful night, and, in the Providence of the Divine, a peaceful death.

In Kobe’s words, let’s begin the journey.

We will be posting articles on AuthenticRetirement.com on a regular basis. We hope they will prove interesting, challenging and helpful and we invite you to share them with family and friends.