Self-fulling prophecie

Retirement means you no longer want to, or can work. Retirement can be seen as a beginning to the end of a phase of life where you have been focused on your career and the start of a phase of life where the focus is given to free time and rest. To ensure that retirees maintain the quality of their life as before they plan for retirement but the first step in good retirement planning, is not financial planning but self-awareness.

Our past can indicate with high probability what we might do in the future. This means that many aspects of our personalities and behaviour will continue to function in retirement. A person's experience may shape our identity and adjust in order to achieve compatibility of identity and experience can contribute to a balanced identity over time.

Your view of life-based on your experience may allow you to see retirement as a process that will lead to a sense of emptiness, loneliness and a reduction in life satisfaction. Or your life experience and view of life could allow you to see retirement as a process that will lead to a sense of discovery, exciting new relationships and an increase in life satisfaction. Both views are self-fulling prophecies. If you believe the former it will come true, if you believe the latter, it will come true. Your understanding of your "self" and your self-awareness is important in which world view of retirement you take.

Attitude toward retirement

When you retire your attitude toward your future is important. You can believe that retirement is about, creating a new self-awareness and self identification, gaining new friends, living on a smaller income, finding new social supports, creating a new role for yourself, finding things to do to fill the time, and developing new skills.

Or you can believe that retirement is adjusting to a lower income, losing friends and other social support, finding out you are no longer an important person, filling time until you die, and feeling blue because you are not using your old skills.

Retirement is not about being taken care of or being put into care.

According to the school of Mental Health in Ontario exploring self-awareness and sense of identity is a chance for courageous and supportive conversations about strengths, difficulties, preferences, values, lived experiences, ambitions.

To do this you need a safe environment where you can learn, affirm cultural heritages and practise advocating for yourself. Having a sense of who you are, in the context of culture and community, may help you see how you matter and can contribute to the world.

Retirement is a formal departure from paid work that occurs on a given day, a status with new rules to learn and a process that begins the day an employee acknowledges that their worker role will end. For example, there may be losses of social and recreational activities with other workers, a shared history with other workers, pride in and respect expressed for a worker’s competence, the stimulation and challenge of the job, and perks that were part of the job.

For many of us, the job has defined us for all of our working years, Our lifestyle is tied to our work, because work/career occupies so much of our existence. Our career/work defines our Involvement with family, friends, recreations, hobbies, etc. However, the social interaction of the workplace is also part of our social life. These important aspects of the workplace can be missed following retirement.

In retirement the roles and behaviour patterns will or should be abandoned or modified, many face the difficult task of finding new sources of identity to replace those lost. A small but growing part of planning for retirement is to develop a diversified portfolio of “self” so that despite losing your work self to retirement, other selves will be available to fill the gap. Some of these alternate selves (e.g., family roles, club involvements) will continue into retirement and will grow.

Ageing and psychology

 “I hate ageing” was the comment, she made, and she went on to explain that it was not getting old that she disliked it was the restrictions that ageing put on her. She moved slower, she had balance issues, and the list went on. Her partner and she were worried about retirement, she had hoped to retire this year, but due to financial considerations, she felt she could not fully retire. Planning for retirement was something she and her partner may not have done when they were younger. I believe they had not really looked at the fact they were getting older.

A recent study out of Ireland tells us some interesting things about those who are most likely to engage in financial planning. It found that psychological variables significantly predict the likelihood of financial planning behaviour among their sample of older workers. Specifically, they found that older workers with more positive beliefs about their ability to control aspects of ageing are more likely to financially plan for retirement.

They also found that older workers who have an intermittent, rather than a constant, awareness of their own ageing are less likely to plan for their retirement. Perhaps intermittent recognition of ageing is easier to ignore or does not create a sufficiently urgent impetus to begin preparing for the future, or indeed acknowledge impending aging? Interestingly, those with more negative perceptions about the consequences of ageing, but who have a more continuous awareness of ageing, were more likely to have a private pension saving plan. Again, this suggests that being regularly reminded of getting older, especially where those reminders are negative in terms of their consequences, may initiate the prioritizing of planning for retirement.

Happy British Columbia Day

Despite its not being a Canadian federal government holiday like Christmas or Good Friday (though it was recognized as “legal” in 1996), most residents do get British Columbia Day (or its equivalent in their region) off from work. The seeds for the traditional celebration becoming a recognized holiday were sown in 1969 when the government of Ontario named the first Monday in August “Simcoe Day” in honour of anti-slavery figure John Graves Simcoe. Before long (1974 in British Columbia), other territorial governments heard proposals from prominent politicians and affirmed that they should celebrate their honourable histories in an official capacity.

Canadians often refer to the holiday as one of the “stats” (statutory holidays), or “publics,” which, again, differ in the level of legal importance from territory to territory, and municipality to municipality. But the day does fall in the middle of the summer season, and not too many Canadians complain about a chance to plan a long weekend and make a fun family outing out of British Columbia Day!

British Columbia Day in Canada is the name for the first Monday in August when residents of British Columbia celebrate their local heritage. In other Canadian provinces, the same day is known by different names unique to their respective areas, for example, “George Hamilton Day” in Hamilton, Ontario, and “Saskatchewan Day” in the province of that name. British Columbia Day recalls explorer James Douglas’ discovery of the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island, the site of the current city of Victoria, and the eventual announcement by the British that the region would become the colony called British Columbia. Similarly, other provinces focus on their particular items of culture, history, and political development.

All across Canada, the day is marked by parades, festivals, and other public gatherings, many of which are themed. As a primary example, British Columbia offers the Anime Revolution, the Vancouver Pride Parade, and the Powell Street Festival (a celebration of Asian-Canadian heritage).

Why We Love British Columbia Day

There are festivals galore

Right around British Columbia Day, plenty of street fairs and cultural activities take place. From a street dance festival to a Caribbean festival, there are many opportunities to join in the revelry of the occasion.

It’s at the height of summer

Summertime is the perfect time to enjoy British Columbia's scenic beauty, from rugged coastlines to scenic mountain hiking trails. The fact that British Columbia Day falls smack in the middle of the summer season means you can always plan that adventurous weekend getaway.

WIt celebrates the diverse population of British Columbia

British Columbia is a melting pot of cultures, and the holiday recognizes the various ethnicities that make the region such a vibrant place. In fact, just for one example, there's a dedicated festival for anime lovers in Vancouver. Other celebrations are just as specifically targeted, and all are a good time!