Potholes on the retirement road

Dear Periamma,

Kindly address me Viswa and it is embarrassing when you address me Viswa Sir, Let "Sir" be reserved for those lovely daughters of the next generation.

You raised the million dollar question. May be that is why people say men are from Mars and women are from Venus. If you ask me the true reason, I would describe it as follows. Have you seen the logo of Madras Rubber Factory? Men always think that they carry a very important responsibility of taking care of the family whereas women never assume that role and just keep busy doing it throughout their life.

There is a proverb in Tamil, "Gopurathai Bommai Thangudha?" meaning, "Is the statue on top of the Gopuram responsible for holding its structure?" In MRF tire logo, a man holds a tire above his head and I always think men are like that. They think that all the responsibilities in the world are above their head.

That is the subtle difference between men and women. Men talk about how to be responsible whereas women do it day in and day out.

Thank you for your last two sentences. It gave me courage not to consider the retirement age as preparation for the eternal journey but to enjoy the life everyday leaving the penultimate day into the hands of the Lord. After all, the Lord who pulls the plug must be happy to see a smiling face of His creation.

Viswa

 

Dear GG,

Thank you for your response. You are right. Some may not get a chance to retire or even may not last until retirement.

I feel the responsibility continues even after retirement but with limited amount of retirement resources. But the time we spent on professional work are saved for pursuing other hobbies and passions.

After living in the US for this long, my wife could not wait for retirement, a period in which someone cooks and cleans for her. Perhaps, that is the greatest motivator for asking me to retire soon. If we move back to India, we can hire someone to help.

I am always available to help her at a moment's notice even now and I don't have to wait to do that after retirement. Serving the society, Reading, Traveling, Mentoring, Teaching, etc. are something that I certainly like to pursue after retirement. I hope and pray that I am left with enough steam to carry on that long. Everything is in the hands of the Lord.

Viswa

 

Dear Smt. Srinivasan:

Thank you for your response. Your words humbled me as much as Kamla's. I hope and pray that I live up to those expectations.

It is so comforting to know that I don't have to change my lifestyle even after retirement because that is what I would like to accomplish. What is more comforting is the role models like you, Cheeniya Sir and many others who lead a wonderful life past retirement.

Viswa

 

Dear Cheeniya Sir,

I am truly surprised to receive your direct response to this post. A very simple first sentence of yours made me smile ear to ear as I know every word that comes from your pen are truly from your heart. Frankly, someone like you need no planning because you lived a life that required no change whether you worked or not. It is interesting to know that you led successful retired life already as much as you worked for State Bank of India.

Retiring when you have two young daughters aged 21 and 19 to be married shows how much self confidence and determination is built into your system. Your Sishya living here in the US would have choked in that situation. Your mindset of not seeing the connection between your retirement and the marriages of your daughters tells it all.

Your last paragraph inspired me a lot about retirement. I live in the world now with hands in the society and head in the forest, in its literal sense, not in the philosophical sense. Your words encouraged me not to consider the retirement as a cut-off point in life. In fact, I am aspiring not to make any lifestyle change to adjust to the retirement life. I am not saying this from economics point of view but from the point of view of changing the mindset to adjust.

I am able to relate your words better after contemplating a little why you used the term walking in the woods. It is adventurous, eventful, enlightening and exploratory.
There is no purpose in considering that as shutting down period as everyday during that period is outright for pursing the passions and enhance happiness.

As I mentioned in my response to Kamalji, you and him are great role models for someone like me. I am sure Indra manni should be a great support to all your decisions. Isn't it great to know that there are no promises to keep and whatever we do, in retirement, is exploring whatever we wish to do?

Viswa

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala:

My post would not be complete without your invaluable insight as always. As usual, you have provided a very profound advice for a guy who struggles during a transition phase. In my post, I was paying only attention to mental adjustment and stayed away from focusing on economics.

You are right that the elders' average age is increasing and they should be well prepared to lead a prolonged life as a retired person. Luckily, I have held all the senior corporate positions including that of a CEO in the mid-age and came out of that tunnel vision to become a consultant. I did face the anxiety when I left a public company corporate role to a one man consulting company to begin with. It is a big shift from 12 hours plus work to almost negligible amount of professional work. I have realized long time back that titles mean nothing and it is what we learn while performing those roles that are invaluable.

Regarding handling grandchildren, they are a different generation of people with different intellectual capabilities. In my opinion, the grandparents role should be restricted to showering love and taking select responsibilities as assigned by the parents more than taking the extra step of parenting.

I already spend a lot of time with my spouse since I started working from home. She has overcome her initial reaction of what I have got into enjoying the company which she missed for a prolonged period of time.

Health issues don't wait for the retirement period and can hit one at anytime. If one needs to be health conscious, he or she should do so when one is young enough to make lifestyle changes. Moreover, there are certain health conditions not necessarily dependent on healthy lifestyle.

I have learned all through my life that plans may or may not work out. I have also realized that one may not last that long to execute the plan as the Lord has to bless enough life to execute any plan for that matter. I have zero expectation about retirement at this point as I don't dwell too much into past or future. However, I feel if I can be as close to the mindset I enjoy now, the retirement will be peaceful.

Viswa

 

Dear Cheeniya Sir,

If you both are going to make such delightful interactions, who in the right frame of mind is going to object them? Please feel free to have as many interactions as possible as long as it becomes a thesis for me to contemplate.

Dear Hapax,

Wow! Wow! Wow! You have truly redefined retirement in your words, "For me a non-regrettable and meaningful retirement is one where you are ready to open up to self-exploration". Self discovery is what you aspire for at less than half of my age! Can you become my mentor for retirement? Reclamation is the right term as life is about exploring where we came from. Ramana Mahirishi rightly said, "Find your way back home", a rich teaching that says it all.

I have learned in my life that "I am not what I think I am (the body), what others think I am (the mind) and I am truly the divine consciousness witnessing the cauldron of thoughts and haphazard actions performed by the body". I have also realized that life experience is more, if not as much, unlearning than learning.

I will reveal a secret I came to know about Ashtavadhani, a person who performs eight different tasks at the same time. My rational mind was questioning how a human mind can perform parallel processing while it is meant to be sequential? I got the answer in a research report and a personal conversation with an Ashtavadhani. The performer does not dwell in any of those eight tasks and take the ninth position to observe all eight tasks and sequence them from that ninth position.

That revealed to me the reason why human beings are wired sequentially. After all focusing on one thing i.e. to learn about who I am, reveals the entire universe to me. Otherwise, human life would become a life sentence with no possibility of parole to find the origin.

Seriously, I went back to look up the Wikipedia to what you mean by your new IL name and I found the following:

"A hapax legomenon (/ˈhæpəks lɨˈɡɒmɨnɒn/ also /ˈhæpæks/ or /ˈheɪpæks/;[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP] pl. hapax legomena; sometimes abbreviated to hapax, pl. hapaxes) is a word that occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text."

For you, probably one word is good enough to communicate and you don't need a complete sentence or a paragraph to communicate effectively.

My mind is running riot and you got me going. My heartfelt gratitude for your interactions with Cheeniya Sir, as it revealed something important to me.

Viswa