The experts tell us that while all this is going on, the brain is having a great deal to do with the process. It is exercising your senses of taste, smell, touch, vision, memory of past experiences, and mixing all of these sensations to come up with an answer to the question of what you think you would like to have for dessert. We are told that such decisions – even our choice of dessert - can reflect so much of what we love about life and have done so since the day we were born.
At the conclusion of the meal there is a sense of relaxed satisfaction as the group reflects on how much they enjoyed their meal, especially the dessert. Yes the cost was a factor but the tastes, the richness of the experience and the extent to which they enjoyed themselves was uppermost in their minds. And your choice took into account any impact the experience would have on your continuing health and vitality…didn’t it.
All that to decide on something that is going to satisfy your food hunger for a matter of minutes. What sort of life choices might you come up with if you used this wonderfully-creative, imaginative, personal, individual process for enjoying your dessert years? Nor do you have to make decisions that are going to last for the whole of your remaining life. You can order dessert as often as you wish, just so long as each new decision gives you continuing satisfaction in your hunger to grow, develop and stay fit – mentally, physically and spiritually.
The fact that your food taste buds can reflect so much of your life has equal relevance when it comes to planning what you want to do in your dessert years. We have long understood that everything we do in life can in some way be traced back to our childhood. No matter how revolutionary your dessert years thinking might be compared to your working life, you will always be you and build on your natural growth since birth. You will see more what I mean by this in the later chapter on “My Story”.
How much money will you need to enjoy your dessert years? It’s a question that dominates the issue of planning for retirement. I find this borne out through a Google Alert I have that gives me a weekly list of online articles from all parts of the world about Retirement Planning. Almost always they focus on the financial planning aspects. This was much of the reason behind me writing this book. Not only to get people to think about what they might do in the many years they may statistically-speaking still have ahead of them but to allay many of peoples’ fears about retirement. The word fear is sometimes interpreted as an acronym F.E.A.R. – False Expectations Appearing Real.
By law I cannot help you with your financial planning. I am a lifestyle mentor. I would simply and strongly urge you to seek professional financial planning advice specific to your particular financial circumstances. Not that I don’t have some views on the nature and role of money during my own dessert years to date. I’ve often said, tongue-in-cheek, “if I knew how long I was going to live I’d know how fast to spend my money”. Since I left the fulltime workforce money has of course continued to be necessary to meet my daily needs and some for the more significant needs like a car and the occasional travel. I have however come to regard money less in terms of the amount I have and more about the nature, the role and priority of the money that I have in getting the greatest value out of my remaining years. It’s an excellent time to remember the old saying, be thankful for what you have rather than regret what you don’t have.
WHERE ARE YOU IN YOUR LIFE?
Do you feel your life is on course to achieving your potential, following your passions and maximizing your natural talents? This is always a thought-provoking question, especially in the middle stages of your life. This section of the book will help you to clarify what you need to consider before planning the dessert years of your life.
AN UNEXPECTED DEATH
You hit one of those big 0’s – forty, fifty or sixty years of age. (My son was horrified when he reached thirty!) These days they are not big in terms of age – people speak of sixty as the new fifty, fifty as the new forty and so on. They are big years however in terms of their impact on your thinking. You knew you would eventually reach fifty and sixty of course but it is something of a shock when you actually get there. The person looking out at the world through your eyes has never changed in your mind. You look at yourself in the mirror and you only see a person who has matured. You still have your youthful looks – well…you think so anyway - and you are as mentally alert and physically active as you have been for years. Nothing’s changed. Or has it?
The truth is that it’s often what you can’t see that is starting to change. Changes in the way you are thinking, your emotions, your outlook on life, your sense of what seems important in life, even in the way people respond to you. You might suddenly cringe a little when you hear someone refer to ‘older people’ or people who are showing signs of ageing. Did they have you in mind? Surely not! Yet I remember the absolute shock when for the very first time a school pupil stood up for me in the bus and insisted I take her seat. I should have been thankful but my first reaction was one of horror. Do I look that old??! In fact we were both right – she saw signs of my physical ageing, but she couldn’t possibly know that in my heart I was continuing to feel mentally young and agile.
Suddenly somebody you know well dies unexpectedly. You have probably already experienced the death of somebody you know. This time however he or she is at an age uncomfortably close to yours. You feel what is often called a mortality jolt – a rude reminder that you are indeed mortal. You are staring in the face the fact that one day it will all come to an end. Worst of all you have no idea when it might happen. You certainly didn’t expect your friend to die so soon. You still think of yourself as being ‘immortal’, well at least for quite a few years yet. You don’t dwell on this, you just become a little more aware that the one day as in ‘one day I want to…” is getting closer.
Some years ago a client of mine was hit by a car while he was standing on the footpath. He was in hospital for weeks in a coma and his life was hanging in the balance. When I was finally able to speak with him his first words to me were “Peter whatever you planned to do, do it today”. It was a sobering reminder that life is always a delicate balance of, statistically, the modern person can expect to live increasingly longer, against the reality that it could all end today. Personally, it strengthened my resolve to continue making the most of my talents as much as possible for the benefit of as many people as possible and for as long as life would allow me to do so. Put more simply, I had a good look at my bucket list and realized that life is what you are doing right now; there is no guarantee of tomorrow. For me, this book forms part of my continuing resolve, part of which is to do what I can to help you get the most out of that ‘single-performance play - “Your Life”.
The good news is that this change-of-life going on around you and in your own life includes a new and very positive social shift in reviewing, assessing and resolving the issues affecting your decision about if and when to leave fulltime work. Essentially, we are retiring the word “retired”. It’s time to take a new, more modern approach to writing your script for your life’s Act Three in the play “Your Life”. This approach should reflect the realities of what people are in fact thinking and doing to re-energize their lives today.
There has already been a huge shift in the way life’s journey is being viewed. The younger generations are already seeing the traditional option of one long and distinguished career at work as just one of a variety of options to consider in deciding how best they can satisfy their hunger to grow and develop their potential. The idea of reaching a specific age at which society decrees that you should stop working for any reason at all is rapidly becoming an outdated way of thinking.
This is a matter of some public debate as governments globally look for ways of managing the increasingly major economic challenges of an ageing society. One option to minimize the impact of this on the economy is to increase the age at which a person is entitled to receive a government-funded age pension. This possibility appals those people who want to quit work as soon as possible and see
