What is Retirement? "65 Things to Do When You Retire"

I was going trough my files today and I found the paperwork and letter from the people that published 65 Things to Do When You Retire, 65 Notable Achievers on How to Make the Most of the Rest of Your Life asking me to read and review this book. I think this one is worth revisiting. It was published back in 2012 and I think this post may date back to then. BUT...the important thing in this book never change.

NOTE: THANKS TO THE GENEROSITY OF THE CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS, ALL OF WHOM PROVIDED ESSAYS ON A PRO BONO BASIS, THE ROYALTIES GENERATED FROM THE sale OF THIS BOOK WILL BE DONATED TO NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS DEDICATED TO PREVENTING AND CURING CANCER.

The package came last week.  It was a book called 65 Things to Do When You Retire, 65 Notable Achievers on How to Make the Most of the Rest of Your Life (Sellers Publishing. ISBN13: 1-978-4162-0654-5). I don't know what I expected but this was much better than whatever that was. When people the likes of ex-President Jimmy Carter talks, a person tends to listen. Other contributors included Gloria Steinem leader of the women's movement and Liz Pryor, life advice expert for Good Morning America and Bob Lowry, fellow blogger of Satisfying Retirement. The book is a compilation of short articles by 65 people, some retired and some not. The sage advise just drips off the pages. I found paragraph after paragraph I wanted to rip from the pages and save in a scrapbook somewhere. Here are a few:

• In order to fully live the kind of life we deserve, the steel walls that narrow our thinking need to come down. Walking into retirement we have an opportunity to reset our live, and that begins with resetting ourselves. (Liz Pryor)
• I have come to believe that when you're actually inside oldness, as opposed to anticipating it from the outside, the fear subsides. You discover that you are still yourself, probably even more so. (Jane Fonda)
• Quiet and quirky:  Take some quiet time. This will help you feel your way around all the "I can't because's" that come to mind as you think about all you truly wish to be and do...quirky? That's the core that's truly you, the idiosyncratic self, a force that now deserves a time to fly. (Richard Kimball)
• Results from a study at UCLA captured my attention. It stated that seniors who are socially active had few colds...who knew? "Immunity in the community" sounds like a good motto to me" (Susan RoAne aka The Mingling Maven.)
• As a Danish existential philosopher Soren Keirkegaard put it, "We experience life forward and understand it backward." (Ronald J. Manheimer, Ph.D.)
• The older I get...the more able I am to use my own voice, to know what I feel and to say what I think; in short, to express without also having to persuade. (Gloria Steinem)
• You can imagine that this was not an easy transition. (Jimmy Carter on losing his second run for president at age 50+ and returning to Plains Ga, pop. 700, to live the rest of his life.)

So here you have a book written by notable authors, retirement experts and people that have used the time in the third stage of their life to make personal dreams come true.  I have been writing about retirement for several years now.  Sometimes I think it has all been said.  Then I read a book like 65 Things to Do When You Retire I know that we have only scratched the surface.

The book is available at Sellers Publishing or on Amazon.  It is a paperback book with 400 page and was just released in March 2012.

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