Work & Leisure
Should you stay or should you go?
There are numerous articles and reports
about how we should continue working
into our 80s, if capable, to maintain
optimal mental and physical health. The
research is mixed on this topic. In
general, honest work contributes to
one’s overall better well-being, but working past the typical retirement
age of 65 requires that whatever it is you’re doing be meaningful and
purposeful. Many people work at jobs they are not truly engaged in and
only tolerate to pay the bills. Hopefully, if you are in that kind of work
environment, you can exit by the time you reach 65, and preferably
earlier.
Aging, Retirement & Place
I do not consider myself financially well off in the least,
but I have worked hard all my life, mostly as a freelance
writer and publisher – a tough business that I would not
recommend to anyone unless you have a very thick skin
that can take more rejection than what most people deal
with throughout their lives. READ MORE
Scholars on Aging: How Art
Promotes Well-being
This is the first post of a new series I’m calling “Scholars
on Aging” in which I synthesize some of what I personally
consider, from self-studies, to be the most interesting
articles and books written by academics and authors
around the world who conduct research on aging.
READ MORE
Economics of Soul vs. a Job in Old Age
While I have always been a highly introspective person, I
never thought my introspection would grow more
prominently into old age. I assumed (never assume) that
by now – at 64 – I would have it all figured out and there
would be less of a need to be looking inward and more of
a desire to pursue leisurely activities. READ MORE
Eight Books on How to Deal with Procrastination
As a work-for-hire freelance writer, I have always believed
that the deliberate practice of my work over the
years/decades would give me some small semblance of
financial success and a more continuous stream of
reliable, paid work by this stage of life in my early sixties.
I believed I would have more clients to write for to a point
in which I’d be forced to refuse potential customers, and
that my fees would go up due to my professional experience and honed
talent. Instead, I’m experiencing less work due to ageism. Plus, even in
those instances when I had garnered an occasional writing assignment,
the pay had dropped dramatically to less than 50 percent of what I used
to get. READ MORE
“You don't know
what you're going
to get into when
you follow your
bliss.”
- James Hillman
On Neo-Luddites and Optimists
in the 21st Century Internet Age
Today’s Digital Revolution is a Story of Yin and Yang Opposites
Consider many of the technological innovations that have
developed over a relatively short period of time and
dramatically changed the way humans live and work
today.
It has only been 28 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented
the World Wide Web. The early 1990s heralded in the first
smartphones, and it wasn’t until 2007 that iPhones hit the
mobile marketplace. The iPad was launched in 2010. Facebook launched
in 2004. Google was founded in 1998, and Twitter came along in 2006.
GPS did not even begin to gain wide acceptance with the public until the
mid-1990s. IBM’s Watson demonstrated its powerful artificial
intelligence on Jeopardy a little over seven years ago in February 2011.
READ MORE
Ruminating on Otium
“Otium” is a new word I picked up from an online
discussion. It’s a wonderful word that has very interesting
implications for people in their retirement years.
READ MORE
My New Respect for Retail Employees and a
Serendipitous Message from an Artist
I’ve always enjoyed strolling around office supply and
electronic product stores. So, when I was suddenly forced
to figure out how to quickly supplement my social
security income after my self-employment anchor-client
relationship unexpectedly ended due to economic
reasons, I was both surprised and grateful to be hired as a
part-time printing/marketing customer-service associate
for a well-known national office supply store located a
short 5 minutes from where I live. I figured I could handle about 15 to 20
hours per week servicing customers with their copy and printing needs,
especially since I have a strong background in publication design and
production, even though the job paid only $10.30 per hour. READ MORE
Scholars on Aging Series: How the way
people react to and treat us teaches us
that we’re old.
Many odd, disconcerting thoughts surface during your
sixties. It’s a time, I believe, when we start “learning to be
old,” which happens to be the top-level title of an
excellent academic paper I read recently, “Learning to be Old: How
Qualitative Research Contributes to Our Understanding of Ageism,” by
Deborah K. van den Hoonaard, from the Gerontology Department at St.
Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada. READ MORE