Boomer Generation Faces Retirement Age
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As the boomer generation reaches retirement age, they are quickly learning getting older is a totally different experience.
When I was a youngster, I couldn’t wait until I was older. My elementary school was divided into sections with the fifth and sixth graders “on the hill.” I would look longingly at the more mature girls who had started to develop breasts and imagine how wonderful my life would be like when I was like them.
Actually fifth and sixth grades weren’t that much different than being in fourth. I hadn’t developed those breasts I longed for, so I set my eye down the road to junior high. They had football games and dances. Of course, once there, it was easy to imagine a fabulous life in high school and later on how great college, marriage, and a career would be.
If you’re not careful, it’s easy to spend a lifetime fanaticizing about the next fascinating turn in the road, up there, just out of reach. For me a turning point came after we left a small town and moved to the big city. I had been very unhappy in the small town. I was elated when we first moved to a large metro area. For six months, I explored the nooks and crannies of my new home. Then one day, I was driving down the road when the familiar feeling formed in the pit of my stomach. This wasn’t utopia. I was still me and there wasn’t a glamorous, exciting life waiting for me.
At that moment, I looked back over my life to see how much of it had been spent wishing I was somewhere else. It finally dawned on me that all I had was that one moment. Wherever I went in life, I took me along for the ride and the best I could ever do was enjoy the moment I was experiencing.
It’s easy to fall into that trap as we approach retirement age. People are so stressed with their working lives that it’s simple to imagine a carefree life beyond a job, only to feel disappointed when they arrive at retirement life.
Goals are important. But, if life is lived with the idea that obtaining a destination will result in a brighter, more fulfilling existence, you are doomed to disappointment. The key, simple as it is, is to enjoy the present. This moment is all you have.
Living in the present doesn’t mean you “give up.” It means you accept where you are, because it is where you are at this moment. You give up the quest for the brass ring. You can work towards goals, but recognize that fulfillment comes in working for goals, not obtaining them. You enjoy the pursuit, as much as you take pleasure in arriving at the destination.
As the boomer generation grows older and looks at retirement, the quest for more should be replaced with an acceptance that now is all there is.
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