TOO OLD TO RETIRE YOUNG?

Sixty Is The New Sixty In The Garden.

via David Gillaspie

The dream used to be make a million before you’re thirty and retire.

You’ve seen these people, these young retirees? They travel, learn new languages, stay in shape.

In other words they’re bored to death and need to keep finding challenges before their brains shut down completely.

Of course they’d never say as much. Ask a retired young person how it’s going, and they’ll say great, just fine, thanks.

Then there’s the other answer.

All of their friends still work so they need new people to hang out with.

Who has time in the middle of the day? Not the sort of achievers who retire early. People with drive jump off one horse and onto the next. They don’t stable themselves and check out of real life.

Besides, you start telling new friends your old stories and they start finding ways you can ‘help’ them.

It doesn’t take an email from a Nigerian prince explaining how you’ll make millions if you send him enough money to free up his treasure. When your new pals start sounding like royalty in a bind, they’re probably not the friends you thought they were.

After you get burned a few times, keeping to your retired self seems like a good idea. But what to do?

1. Buy a bunch of woodworking hand tools and use them to build a tool box.

When someone asks you why you only built a tool box, explain how early shipwrights used their tool boxes as a resume. The hiring manager at the wooden boat building yard saw all he needed see from the tool box carpenters brought with them.

From joinery to finishes, your tool box speaks loud. Make it proud.

2. Learn to fly a single engine airplane.

There’s nothing like getting up in the air to loosen earthly ties.

Expect lots of homework. You might be a baby boomer, but you won’t get any breaks in ground school.

Once you get your wings and solo, don’t worry about having just one engine. If it goes, you’ve got a parachute.

You’ve got a parachute, don’t you? Oh, well.

3. Learn to sky dive.

Go ahead and reverse the order on two and three. No sense going up unprepared.

Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane isn’t for everyone. You might be one. After you jump with an instructor roped to your back, you’ll know.

Getting the feeling of falling through air with a measure of safety is enough.

Once you’re in your plane and your engine dies, you’ll at least know what to do. Don’t panic.

Portland baby boomers get painted with the same brush, as if we’re all yuppie scum in tennis shorts with a sweater tied around our necks.

We’re just like the rest of Portland, minus the anxiety. Retired, or not, try and represent the region.

Don’t act too entitled or you won’t be able to complain about the millennials.

Avoid the lifted truck with big tires and vertical exhaust. If not, expect snarky comments about the size…of your truck.

Be friendly to young people. Even if your own kids avoid you like the Ebola virus, be of good cheer to strangers.

Portland is a city awash in the riches of good citizens. If you’re not one, find a role model, or blog to learn.

Keep reading boomerpdx.

via David Gillaspie