To the Editor:
Re “Staying Sharp After Retiring Is Its Personal Job” (entrance web page, March 28):
It’s not shocking to me that analysis has discovered that retirement can result in a rise in melancholy and cognitive decline. After I retired from instructing, emptying my workplace and sorting by means of 50 years of sophistication notes felt extra like grieving than celebrating, at the same time as folks backslapped me with “Congratulations in your retirement!”
This newspaper’s each day obituaries of completed folks convinces me how a lot work issues in our lives; so many profile the terribly lengthy lives of people that labored with ardour nicely into outdated age.
Whereas retirement has its blessings, like not worrying about trivial work-related issues that preserve you up at evening, one thing tells me that when you love what you do, it’s not a nasty concept to keep it up.
Cathy Bernard
New York
To the Editor:
Coming into my eighth 12 months of retirement, having left work on the comparatively younger age of 60, I can state that it’s difficult to remain sharp mentally, however simply completed in that case desired.
First off, a variety of my fellow retiree vacationers, exhausted mentally from difficult work roles, usually search purposely to retreat. For them, fixed golf, tennis and the like are simply superb.
However the bulk of retired people I do know just about observe recommendation that I acquired earlier than retirement, which was to set one’s retirement life into three phases — the “go go,” “go gradual” and “no go” years — and act accordingly.
Consequently, the entrance finish of my retirement turned a collection of hectic travels, together with to Bhutan, Africa, Tahiti and Bora Bora.
However as grandchildren arrive, so do totally different priorities, with journey changing into much less crucial and infrequently. Being near residence allowed extra time for favored nonprofit work; being on the board of an Off Broadway theater; extra involvement in my earlier occupation, accounting; an appointed place on a state board; and not too long ago an advisory function at a higher-level academic establishment.
Retirement is a continuing work in progress. I inform my buddies what I advised our kids as soon as they have been sufficiently old to complain about their rearing: No one gave me a guide for this; I’m simply winging it as finest as I can and hoping for one of the best. They turned out fairly OK. I’m hoping the identical goes for retirement.
Joseph P. Petito
Bethesda, Md.
To the Editor:
Sorry, however I urge to vary with the tone and content material of your article. I used to be lucky to retire at age 61 from a banking job that I didn’t look after in any respect however pursued for monetary causes for about three a long time.
“Liberation Day” got here in Could 2017, after I was lastly capable of stop my job due to adequate financial savings that could possibly be forecast to final for at the very least 30 years of retirement.
I’ve by no means been happier in my life since retiring, spending time with our beloved little canine, studying and studying an amazing quantity, and pursuing my passions within the arts, together with enjoying a musical instrument, and brushing up on my favourite international language, Spanish.
I might wholeheartedly advocate retirement to anybody who has many pursuits exterior work and might afford to take action.
Over the last decade of my working life, I used to be on varied psychiatric medication simply to get me by means of the day. However six months after my retirement, I stop taking these medication and haven’t wanted them since then.
My private conclusion: Viva retirement!
Peter Dallos
Sea Cliff, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Your article in regards to the cognitive challenges of retirement struck a chord with me.
I retired seven years in the past at 70½ with out due consideration of what comes subsequent. I ought to have been forewarned.
When my minister father handed away, one in every of his fellow retirees (additionally a former minister) famous how the 2 of them got here to see retirement as a gradual and prolonged defrocking. I failed to know how apt a metaphor defrocking was even for these not known as to the ministry: In retirement we lose the rituals of an employed life as nicely its attendant measures of energy, stature and recognition.
I want I’d learn this text again then and brought its recommendation to assume these points by means of earlier than retiring. At the very least then I wouldn’t have needed to spend a lot time refrocking.
Greg Rathjen
Milton, Ga.
