Money, Happiness, and a Fulfilling Retirement

The following was posted in an email list serve that I belong to and I thought it was worth sharing.

From: Rick Reis Subject: TP Msg. #1132 November 3, 2011

Shortly after I retired, I listened to a lecture by my former internist, now a gerontologist. He underscored what he termed the "two keys to a long life." The first was, "Use it or lose it." The word "it," made infamous by former president Clinton, refers in this case to the mind and the body.

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Folks:  Money, Happiness, and a Fulfilling Retirement You can't buy happiness.

With age 95 looming far into our future, most of us worry more about outliving our nest eggs than about leading a happy, fulfilling life. Now ten years into my retirement, I realize that focusing solely on financial planning is myopic. If you manage to save a lot of money for retirement, you may later discover that money can't buy happiness or a fulfilling life unless you have planned for it. Achieving happiness and a fulfilling life in retirement isn't easy. I know because I didn't plan for it, and I have only been partially successful.  

Use It or Lose It

Shortly after I retired, I listened to a lecture by my former internist, now a gerontologist. He underscored what he termed the "two keys to a long life." The first was, "Use it or lose it." The word "it," made infamous by former president Clinton, refers in this case to the mind and the body. According to Dr. Walter Bortz, research suggests that watching television is not the way to use your mind. Studies of brain waves show that TV viewing produces the same brain wave activity as staring at a blank wall. Unfortunately, I watch more TV than is mentally healthy because I enjoy watching movies, sporting events, and the news. Breaking this viewing habit remains a challenge for me.

For mental stimulation, I solve puzzles, read about politics and investing, and write books. In my first year of retirement, I wrote a memoir which I titled, "Looking in the Rearview Mirror." Wishing that I had known more about the lives of my father and mother, I thought my children and grandchildren would appreciate learning about mine. After my daughter read a draft, her only comment was, "Dad, it's all about you." Maybe, just maybe, she and her three brothers will some day come to appreciate that it was all about me. My next writing project focused on retirement planning and investing, topics that I thought might be beneficial to my children, grandchildren, and friends. Reading and trying to learn about topics that were foreign to me proved challenging and stimulating. My third book, A Problem-based Approach to Management Education, was written with a former student, Philip Hallinger, and built upon our previous work. I haven't yet decided on my next writing project.

To keep physically fit, I walk daily?usually 30-40 minutes, sometimes longer. Most of the time my companion is a Sony Walkman tuned to National Public Radio (NPR). Several years ago my wife and I hiked a lot, but her arthritis and bad feet limit her physical activity. Occasionally, I walk with a friend or a former student. Although I enjoy listening to NPR, I find it more enjoyable to walk and talk with someone else. Recently, I began to supplement my walking with a 25-minute exercise program Sit and Be Fit, which I recorded on my digital video recorder. Together, the walking and additional exercise have improved my emotional and physical well-being.

There are countless ways in which one can use it rather than lose it. I chose activities that I enjoy. To live a fulfilling life to 95, choose activities that you enjoy and provide a workout for your mind and your body. Spending all day in front of a TV screen does not fit the bill.

Make Yourself Useful, or What's the Job Description for the Rest of Your Life?

To drive home the second key to a long, fulfilling life, Dr. Bortz recounted an experience he had as a young lad. His grandfather owned a grocery store in rural Pennsylvania. From time to time young Walter visited the store and stood around hoping for some candy from his beloved grandfather. One day his grandfather looked at him and said, "Walter, make yourself useful." That comment stuck with him and has become a mantra for living his life.

To make yourself useful, consider volunteering. There is ample research evidence demonstrating the value of volunteering in promoting happiness, health, and longevity (see Harris & Thoresen, 2005). Serving others brings meaning to your life and rewards you with the "Helper's High." You can serve others through formal or informal volunteering. Apparently greater benefits occur to those who volunteer formally rather than informally. If this is the case, several of my friends have an edge on me. They are formal volunteers, whereas I am an informal one. A friend of mine grew up on a farm and developed a useful set of carpentry skills. When he retired from his professorship, he volunteered to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. Each year he supervises the construction of six to eight homes for the less fortunate. Another friend runs a men's group at his church and pursues his academic interests in health and psychology at a local university. A third is a retired college presiden  t who chaired a national campaign to raise money for cystic fibrosis, a  disease that afflicted his two granddaughters. He also chairs the board  of an art institute.

As for me, I never developed the habit of becoming a formal volunteer. For much of my life, I devoted my time to work and family. When I was 36, my concern for family heightened during a taxicab ride from O'Hare airport in Chicago. I engaged the cab driver in a conversation. He talked about his life. I learned that he had worked three jobs so that he could buy a home on Lake Michigan and cars for his wife and children. As a result, he spent little time with his family. In the end he was estranged from his kids, and his wife divorced him. His final comment had a profound effect on me, "I lost what I had, and what I had was more important than what I wanted." From that moment on I decided to devote even more time to my family. Consequently, I have a reasonably good relationship with my four children and have been happily married for more than 55 years. As my wife said on our Golden Wedding Anniversary, "We like as well as love each other." By emphasizing work and family, I negl  ected those activities that might have stood me in good stead as a  retiree, namely, volunteering and becoming active in social and church  groups.

My sense of usefulness derives mainly from helping former colleagues, friends, and my children with financial decisions that face them. Occasionally I speak to a group about retirement planning and work with individuals who are contemplating retirement. Though I feel reasonably competent to help others in making decisions about investments and retirement, I have discovered that many are reluctant to discuss their financial affairs with someone whom they know. From time to time former students come by my home and seek advice as they cope with a range of problems. Others phone me from distant places and use me as an executive coach. Still others drop by to talk and share what is going on in their lives. These activities nourish my spirit and afford me a taste of the "Helper's High."

If formal volunteering appeals to you, I suggest you develop the habit years before you retire. The transition to retirement will be easier. According to what I have learned, your skills and wisdom will more likely be welcomed if you have cemented yourself in the volunteer organization before you retire. Three good starting points for finding volunteer opportunities are listed below:

Administration on Aging http://www.aoa.gov (202) 619-0724. (Help older people in need.)

The National Retiree Volunteer Coalition (800) 899-0089 ext. 5091 (Work with universities and local governments.)   Senior Corps (800) 424-8867 (Helps seniors find opportunities in their local community.)

Additional Keys

My former internist overlooked two additional keys to living a happy, fulfilling, and long life in retirement: being socially connected and religiously involved. Putting all of your emotional eggs in one basket can be dangerous to your physical and mental well-being (Coontz, 2006). Retirees especially need to broaden their social connections, people whom they enjoy and in whom they confide. If your spouse is the only one with whom you discuss important matters, you will become socially isolated when that person dies or becomes incapacitated. That happened to a friend of mine's father; having no one else can be devastating. It is important to establish close social and emotional ties beyond your nuclear family. I am fortunate that I have several friends with whom I share my fears, concerns, and matters of personal import. Though I believe in God and try to lead a Christian life, I do not attend church regularly. Some of my friends have an edge on me because they attend church   regularly, and regular churchgoers tend to live longer than those who do  not.

As you think about retirement, factor into your thinking the need to plan for a long, happy, and fulfilling life. If your financial house is in order, you could benefit from adopting the philosophy of Milton W. Garland, an active centenarian and inventor. He said, "Live like you're going to live forever, not like you're going to die tomorrow."

TIP!

If you want to learn more about how to live a happy, fulfilling life, read Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well by Ralph Warner (2004). It will help you prepare for retirement better than any book that I have read.

Pension envy grows as boomers retire

I found this article By Jonathan Chevreau, Wealthy Boomer; Financial PostOctober 29, 2011, interesting.

There were several signs this week that pension envy - or pension apartheid - is alive and well in Canada and likely to intensify as Baby Boomers start retiring, or try to retire.

The great divide is between the lucky 20% in cushy public-sector defined-benefit pensions and the rest hoping to retire on fluctuating RRSPs or defined-contribution pensions.

On Wednesday, pension consultants Tower Watson said those with DC pensions can expect a pension freedom age approaching age 67 - two years beyond the traditional retirement age. And Statistics Canada reported 50-year-old Canadian workers can expect to work 16 more years, three years longer than in the 1990s.

The conspicuous exception to this trend is the minority who live in the protected "Bell Jar," to use a term from a new book from Wiley Canada, Pension Ponzi. It reports the average public-sector retirement age is a spry 59.

To match public-sector DB pensions, the rest of us would need $2million RRSPs, which is why the CD Howe Institute this week urged a lifetime contribution limit of just that figure.

The book's co-authors, Lee Fairbanks and Bill Tufts of the Fair Pensions for All blog, recap how Canada's public-sector unions won their members huge salaries "that far outstrip anything comparable in the private sector and incredibly generous pensions." The beneficiaries all rate chapters in the book: government workers and politicians, teachers, firefighters, police officers and the armed forces.

Rather than bring the 80% up to their level, Fairbanks and Tufts would make the Bell Jar less cushy. They liken the status quo to a "pension Ponzi scheme" that will eventually collapse. Despite the complacency of the 20%, Canada is a small country with a large ($1-trillion) public debt. The authors expect the chickens to come home to roost, as they have in Ireland and Greece.

It's true some non-unionized private-sector workers still have DB pensions but these are rarely the Cadillac inflation-indexed plans unions negotiated for the public sector. And the trend for large corporate employers is to close DB plans to new hires, switching to DC pensions, which - like RRSPs - lack the "defined" promise of a guaranteed monthly income in retirement.

While DC plans and RRSPs may do well in protracted bull markets the reality of the past decade has been the opposite. The result is what Towers Watson terms a "double whammy" for those not in DB plans.

You could argue all workers qualify for a public DB pension in the form of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). But average annual CPP benefits are $5,919, compared to $42,900 enjoyed by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP), a difference of seven times.

When I cast my envious eye at contemporaries retired in their fifties, invariably they joined DB pensions early in their careers and stuck it out. One couple has TWO teacher pensions.

But it's by no means certain these pensions can meet their obligations. The OTPP is $35-billion short. (The author may intend to imply the OTPP is in big trouble, read the next paragraphs for another perspective)

The following is from Sue at Boomer Bucks which has a different perspective than the previous statement

The envied defined benefit Ontario Teachers Pension Plan posted record income in 2010 above its target benchmarks during the year, but this was not enough to stop its funding deficit from growing to $17.2-billion from $17.1-billion, as liabilities outpaced assets.

Further impacting this plan, not only is the Boomer demographic now beginning to influence the liabilities but on average in 1990, retiring teachers received benefits for 25 years after working 29 years. Now, members draw a pension for 30 years, after working 26 years.

With low interest rates and a staggering and uncertain stock market, it will be impossible to eliminate shortfalls through investment returns alone and the retirement demographic is blooming with Boomers.

While this Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is solid for now, and can pay benefits for years, there will need to be a plan to ensure funding to pay pensions to the younger teachers decades from now.

Look no further than Greece to see how countries can default on public-sector paycheques and break pension promises

My thoughts and some others are this,  here we go again. Instead of acknowledging how unfairly to varying degrees workers in the private sector are frequently treated by their employers, how exploited they are in the name of profit since they are the most vulnerable component in the production process, these writers, like so many on the right spectrum of economics, once again choose to resent the just achievements of collective bargaining in both the private and public sector. Teachers, firefighters, police officers, armed forces, government workers: our esteemed authors - probably graduates of the CD Howe Institute of Right of Centre Economics - are saying they do not deserve their defined benefits pensions. Why? Because most of the private sector employees don't get the same sort of benefits. What bunk!

Okay, all you folks in the private sector without DB plans who feel that way do something about it by confronting your employers instead of resenting the negotiated achievements of collective bargaining. I know that's a tough thing to do when almost everyone in the private sector is in effect a just-in-time worker living in fear, who can be axed at any moment. You are instantly replaceable, and you know it. You feel powerless and your are, caught in the vicious web of capitalism. So join the occupy movement, wear a mask if you have to, and check out senior mangement's paycheck if you still want to feel envious and resentful.

older really does make you wiser.

As we  move into 2012 there is finally proof that older is not only better, but we are wiser as well. This article posted in the Mailonline Newspaper in October offers the proof. The article is below
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Here is the evidence parents have longed to arm themselves with in disputes with their children – getting older really does make you wiser.

The over-55s use their brains more efficiently than their younger counterparts, as they are much more likely to shrug off mistakes, say scientists.

And while they may take more time to come to a decision, they are simply conserving their energy.

Younger people, by contrast, give the impression of being sharper, simply by coming up with answers more quickly. But this, say the researchers, may be a sign of inexperience rather than wisdom.

The Canadian scientists set two groups of participants tasks that involved sorting words into pairs, and scanned their brains as they completed them.

The tasks included pairing words according to category or initial letter and picking out words that rhymed.

Initially, they were not told what sort of pair to look for. Instead, the game helped them work it out by telling them if they had made the right choice or not. Over time, the categories were changed.

Neuro-imaging scans revealed striking differences between the brains of the older and younger participants when they made a mistake.

In the younger ones, the error instantly activated several different parts of the brain to help them decide what to do next.

The older people, however, held their fire until the game restarted. Only then did they start thinking about what they were going to do.

Study author Dr Oury Monchi, of the Institute of Geriatrics at the University of Montreal, said: ‘When the young participants made a mistake and had to plan and execute a new strategy to get the right answer, various parts of their brains were recruited even before the next task began.

‘However, when the older participants learned that they had made a mistake, these regions were only recruited at the beginning of the next trial, indicating that with age, we decide to make adjustments only when absolutely necessary.’

He added: ‘The older brain has experience and knows that nothing is gained by jumping the gun.

‘Being able to run fast does not always win the race – you have to know how to best use your abilities'

Dr Oury Monchi, study author

'We now have neurobiological evidence showing that with age comes wisdom and that as the brain gets older, it learns to better allocate its resources.’

Dr Monchi compared the results to Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, saying: ‘Being able to run fast does not always win the race – you have to know how to best use your abilities.

‘This adage is a defining characteristic of ageing. It is as though the older brain is more impervious to criticism and more confident than the young brain.’

Overall, the older group, who were aged between 55 and 75, took longer to complete the game but did roughly as well as those aged 18 to 35, the journal Cerebral Cortex reported.


Read more here

Revolutionizing the Lens You Use to View Your Life

The following was written by by Dorian Mintzer,who is a Retirement Coach, who I read and who I think has some interesting ideas. This is from an article she wrote in October, 2011

Last month I was focusing on the importance of relationships and a sense of community in our lives. I still find myself looking through this lens and perhaps always will. Relationships and connection are pivotal in my life, although sometimes life gets so busy that I feel that I'm not a particularly good friend when I don't stay in touch. But then, when it's a birthday or just finally time when a space opens up to connect, I feel a sense of gratitude that, with many of my special friends, we can connect as though it was "just yesterday."

On a few occasions I've discovered that Facebook has helped in the process. For example, three people from different periods of my life-one going back 50 years, another 40 years and another 35 years suddenly "reappeared," wondering if I was the "Dori Mintzer" from back then. Although the memories had receded, I found it so interesting that the connection brought forth a surge of memories-so I began to remember family member names, events and other friends from those time periods. I could almost feel the brain connections at work!

Although I had changed my last name for a brief time with my first marriage, when I divorced I decided to go back to my maiden name and stay with it. My attitude was that "relationships can come and go, but I want to hold on to a constant me." You may agree or disagree with this attitude. It has worked for me, although, now almost 30 years in a relationship with my husband, in some social situations I am often referred to by my husband and son's last name and love that, too.

When women change their name with marriage it can sometimes becomes more difficult to reconnect with old "friends." Some women continue to use their maiden name as a middle name, but not everyone does. If you have a wish to reconnect with some people from the past, you may want to think about adding your maiden name to your profile. I've found myself thinking about a few of my friends from the past who I can't find since they don't list their prior name. I would encourage you to allow yourself some reflection time and an opportunity to evaluate the "state of your relatedness to others"-family and friends and perhaps use the opportunity to catapult you into an action mode to reconnect. I recommend it.

What I've found is a sense of gratitude for the people who have been part of my life. In a similar way, I find as I get older, that I also value my family more. Family members have been sick, there have been a few deaths recently, some after long lives well lived and others where life ended much too prematurely. I hope that all of us will take time to consider and reconsider our lives and our relationships and allow ourselves to value the connections.

Life Transition/"Retirement" Coach, Dorian Mintzer, Founder of the Boomers and Beyond Special Interest Group and co-author of The Couple's Retirement Puzzle, helps self-reliant boomers reinvent themselves in the next stage of life. Visit her site at: http://www.RevolutionizeRetirement.com.