The dilemma

Now, one year before my retirement, I am accosted with queries regarding my current and future job status and plans of action. I would like to review my future options dispassionately and independently. Of course, discussions with family and friends ensure that I’m not hasty and I am on the right track. Indeed, I am at crossroads. There are two main options in the form of paths which I dare follow. Choosing the correct path is important because that will determine the quality of my future life and how it will be spent.

One option for me is to use my last pre-retirement year in fruitful employment, career-wise. Teaching or corporate job involves a routine, organised and structured modus operandi of living – something which I know I will miss on retirement. “With no pains, there are no gains” goes the erstwhile saying which infers that I make the adequate moves that having corporate employment entails. Especially since I will be competing and co-existing with colleagues who are decades younger than me.

From the practical standpoint and coming down to brass tacks, the job will promise me judicious use of time in fruitful endeavours with a salary package thrown in for good measure. It is true that I, like anyone else, must be driven, determined and dauntless in my job where I follow ethical codes of conduct and pursue hard work. To meet expectations, I would have to use my time conscientiously through smart time-management strategies.

While this sounds amazingly ambitious, there is, as opposed to this policy of `Work and save money’, another school of thought for to-be-retired folk and that is to see the bigger picture and the whole meaning of life, which translates as `Enjoy your life, you only live once’. Yes, the problem of retirement is that one has garnered much experience, where though one knows the answers, there is no one to ask the questions!

Interestingly, it is said that towards the end of one’s life, one would regret more the things that one didn’t do than the things one did do. So, I am aware that I can possibly spend a sizeable part of my time in leading an adventurous life, ticking off items from my bucket list. Besides this, to keep me occupied, I, aim for realizing my dreams, whether it be starting a start-up company, writing that long-overdue book or the practice of leading a meaningful life of yoga, meditation and reading motivational books.

I should not hibernate or indulge in mental lethargy but instead, go all out to realize my life goals. I tell myself that I should be sanguine and not think of what can go wrong, but, instead, be positive and be excited about what could go marvellously right. Doris Day’s song couldn’t have been more on the mark, “Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think, Enjoy yourself, while you’ re still in the pink...”