I think it’s wiser
to forget about whether we can retire or not based on what our working
status or financial situation may be. If you think you have to work,
then there is a natural tendency to moods of resignation,
disappointment and, sometimes, resentment. People get depressed
whenever they are trapped in a story that limits their self-expression
and turns them into victims of the circumstances. This could be
important to consider if you will continue
Category Archives: Retirement
Age Discrimination II
I am against trying to ‘legislate’ or ‘regulate’ good behavior. I
don’t think people respond very well to rules that are ‘good for
them’—whether it is anti-smoking legislation, ‘dietary’ packaging, or
sanctions on putting condom machines in high schools. People will, at
best, comply, but the underlying problems and cognitive blindness
persists for decades (if not forever). The result is institutionalized
secrecy, hypocrisy, black markets
Identity
During my business lifetime, I have had many careers—everything
from school secretary, waitress and restaurant owner to author, legal
secretary and promotion director. I was also a realtor, both in Canada
and the United States. When I retired from the real estate profession
after more than 20 years, butterflies started flying around in my
stomach. Instead of giving in to my fears, I said, “Stop. Listen up,
self. I have worked all
Age Discrimination I
Age discrimination is probably one of the last forms of negative
stereotyping left—perhaps even the subtlest. It wasn’t so long ago that
color, sexual orientation and gender were in the spotlight. Now, as 70
million of us are becoming the dominant demographic force in the world,
we can begin to see our culture’s bias toward age appearing as overt
forms of discrimination.
Even
corporations that are sensitive to ‘diversity’ are often biased against
older workers in their hiring,
Limits
Was talking to a friend the other night and she came up with one of
those semi-profound things that sticks in your head and gets more and
more interesting the more you think about it. She said: “Without limits in life, you have nothing”.
So
was she saying that living without limits is not such a good idea
(since limits define what is possible)? Or was she saying that living
without limits is good (since once you realize you have nothing, you
have everything)? This was
Life Coaching
Crabby Old Lady took a swipe at life coaches
yesterday. I commented to her that the same might be said of lawyers,
heath care providers and financial counselors. The fact is there are
many opportunistic and unqualified people calling themselves coaches.
While I can agree with her concern, I cannot let her sweeping
generalization impune the work of thousands of committed and competent
individuals.
What I want to point out is that, as an emerging field and
profession, coaching is attempting
Resignation at Work
I have been working a lot lately with organizations and, in
particular, with their cultures and attempts to change them. Given my
growing interest in the culture of aging, I have been paying a lot of
attention to what people say about how the ‘retirement’ process works,
particularly in the Public Service and other large bureaucracies. The
gist of what I hear is that people do their darnedest to ‘get away’
from all the bullshit, while still ‘hanging
First Impressions
I arrived in St. Lucia yesterday after an all-night flight and
grabbed the first taxi in line. The driver was an “old” guy who wasn’t
talkative and didn’t seem too happy. We had a 90-minute ride to the
hotel on the other side of the Island, so after a while I tried to make
conversation by asking some inane questions like “How many people live
here?” and “Have you lived here all your life?” The driver’s responses
were more like New York City
Unreasonableness
I spent a good chunk of my life learning to be reasonable. In
business, the mantra for any proposal was always: “Is it practical?” It
seemed to me that reasonableness (and its sister practicality) were
virtues. People who were unreasonable or impractical seemed to be
exceptions—they came across as flaky, dangerous, occasionally lucky,
unpredictable, disconnected, loose canons and, above all, they weren’t
team players. When I turned 50, I came upon