The secret of life

Retirement should be given a new name. It is not just a sign that your professional life is over. It is a sign that a new life is beginning, one where you are freer because there’s no company to tell you what to do.

The Asian Institute of Management or AIM, my alma mater for a master’s in Entrepreneurship I took and graduated from in 2001, invited me to give a talk on aging. Actually AIM did not invite me. I was invited by an old friend and client CJ Jesena, another AIM graduate. CJ and I worked together at Coca-Cola. In my book, those were the best years of my career. Maybe even the best years of my life.  But that’s another story.

 In a sense, I am a very irresponsible person. I never thought about retirement. But at 57 I got so tired of what I had been doing for the past 33 years — advertising — that I decided to quit. I thought I had a small retirement fund waiting for me but found out that I didn’t. What happened to me after that is once again another story. I had a stroke. It changed my personality completely. I became a different person — quiet, on the stupid side, not laughing the way I used to laugh or the way I laugh now. For six years I was that blanked-out person.

But one day I ran into an old friend who was still as good-looking as I remembered him to be when we were young. I asked him why. He recommended a drug to me — that’s another story — I took it and it brought back my old personality. Suddenly I was my old self again. My old personality and writing style had returned. I was vibrant again. Also I had a new career. I sold the drug and could support myself easily again. I had learned the biggest lesson of my life.

To retire well you have to earn your own money again.

So I didn’t have a retirement fund. But even if I did I would still have had to work because while your retirement fund may look big enough for you when you get it, you don’t know how long you’re going to live. We are living longer and longer. My mother died when she was 88. I will probably go in my 90s, even if I pray for an accident, and you will probably live to see your 100s. How will you support yourselves?

 I think retirement should be given a new name. It is not just a sign that your professional life is over. It is a sign that a new life is beginning, one where you are freer because there’s no company to tell you what to do. One where your children are grown up and independent enough to take care of themselves or they should be.  One that you have enough start-up money for. And one that I hope you have the enlivened spirit for. You must have a new joyful and happy life in your old age. For that you need high spirits.

By the time you retire you must know yourself very well and you must love yourself a lot, which means that you will avoid gambling at casinos. If you know and love yourself well, you will know and love other people well, too. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. God’s primary rule. You must obey that. On the other rules you can be flexible.

After your retirement date you may give yourself time to do nothing. Maybe you will enjoy that for a short while. But my advice is as early as now, while you’re in your 50s, you must start thinking of something else that you would like to do after you retire. My suggestion is you think of something that you will definitely enjoy and that will make you earn enough money to live on for a long time.

Look at me. I write a Sunday column, I sell a stem cell, make and sell jewelry, teach people how to write, paint. Those things set my life on course. Do I feel I’m doing enough? No, I don’t but these days I don’t have that much time because I just got married at 73. My husband is 80 and we’re still honeymooning. Next year I hope to find myself something new to do.

My marketing background tells me there are many business opportunities for seniors. They are a target market much ignored because we all feel old when we retire. But believe me, we are not. We have knowledge that we can share. We can set up senior centers where we can meet, talk and laugh together. We can teach people about life and how to live it. We can do anything as long as we stop feeling old. We must feel alive, curious, always brimming with laughter. Who cares about wrinkles and white hair? They are externals. We must care about the things we have learned in our hearts and share them.

 For me aging has only one ingredient: Happiness, whatever our age. Happiness is not only the secret of aging. It’s the secret of life!

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