Is there life after retirement?

Is there life after retirement? According to Professor Bill Hochman, YES!

Here are a series of things you may find useful if you are looking forward to your retirement years. Stay physically active at any level you find possible. Robert Hutchins, the legendary leader of the University of Chicago, supposedly once said: "Whenever I feel like exercising, I lie down until that feeling goes away." Hutchins was WRONG! You get energy from exercise. Physical activity is good for you here, on athletic teams, in the mountains. It is good for mind and body now.

Don't be a recluse; associate with people all the time. Computers and television are beguiling, but they can be isolating and solitary enterprises. In contacts, conversation, and relationships with other people, the mind seems to race and the body jump-starts. Pursue wide associations now.

Cultivate passionate involvement with public affairs. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, "It is required of everyone to share in the actions and passions of their time, at the peril of being judged not to have lived.". Involvement in public affairs is particularly valuable in retirement years.

Be involved in what might be called a second career in voluntary organizations, in book and discussion groups. Those are life-giving involvements that can be calibrated to your interests and capacities. Travel as much as possible within your means. Allow yourselves to be seduced by strange and new places, distant cultures, unfamiliar people.

Try to do something worthwhile, for the benefit of other people. Some of you remember reading Albert Camus' marvellous novel, "The Plague". In one passage, Dr. Rieux's friend Tarrou said that in the midst of plagues (terrible events in the world) he wanted to achieve peace; Rieux asked him if he had any idea how to do that. Yes, said Tarrou, through "the path of sympathy." That is not a bad answer, looking at the terrors and problems of our world today.

Take delight in the beauty of this fragile and beautiful earth we are privileged to inhabit. Perhaps you remember Thoreau's experience at Walden Pond. There he found solace in the mystery, peace, and beauty of nature. They and other places are there now, waiting to delight you.