Advice on how to prepare for retirement

Robert Browning said it so poignantly: “Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, ‘A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid.’ ”

This article is for those who are retired and those who have the foresight to plan for retirement.

Retirement is one of life’s realities, yet it is often ignored. Many dread it with such vehemence that in the end a premature death denies them of it. We can prepare for crossing over the abyss into that no man’s land some call retirement and in so doing make those golden years productive and enjoyable.

My friend had it right when he said, “Edgar don’t put off retirement. You are at your best for the Lord after you retire.” So it was for him. So it is for me. And so I pray it will be for you.

Health: Health takes its rightful place at the head of the list. With health, we have options. Some comic has said, “The secret of long life is in choosing good parents.”

Genes play a role in longevity, to be sure, but it is still true that many shorten their life span by neglect or misuse. Being good stewards of the body God has given us is our Christian responsibility. We can go only as far as our bodies will take us. We know what makes for good health; the secret is in mustering the discipline to do it.

Attitude: If health has a rival, it is attitude. Most of us are about as happy as we make up our minds to be. “A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). A sign in some physical therapy departments speaks to us: “It is not what you’ve lost; it’s what you have left.” If we dread retirement, dread is what we are sure to get. If we plan for it, the retirement years can be the Indian summer of our life. In retirement we have the time to do the things we have long wanted to do. Make a list of them and then start doing them. And while you are doing them, more will appear.

Financial freedom: Financial freedom in the retirement years is the reward for having practiced discipline throughout life. Many think that when the funds are exhausted before the month has ended that the problem is on the earning side of the ledger. So they get a second job and in the process often also increase their expenses, leaving them with little net gain. My finding, and I have lived on a church salary all my life, is that the problem is as likely to be on the expenditure side. Your expenses, it has been said, must not exceed your income or your upkeep will be your downfall. It is as simple as that. There are exceptions, and I sympathize, but for most of us, a little self-denial together with a measure of God’s blessings can bring financial freedom in the senior years—and how freeing that is!

Activity: We need something to do, something that motivates us to wrestle that bed off our backs in the morning. The loss many feel at retirement can be likened to chopping off a tree. Finished. We miss it terribly. But after a year or two some new shoots are seen growing from the remaining stump. Select one and foster it; it can become the next tree. We have gifts our job or career have not uncovered. In retirement they have space to grow. For some this can lead to a mini career, as it did for me. A sign over my desk reads, “Keep on using me, Lord, until you use me up.” As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” Age is just a number.

Family and friends: We need family and friends in retirement more than ever. We have invested a lot in these relationships, especially our children. For long our role was to do things for them. Now we reach a stage in life where we must also learn to be graceful recipients. A moment I cherish is when, after a restaurant meal, my son looked me in the eye and said, “Let this be my treat.” My challenge was to receive his gesture with gratitude so he could enjoy being a cheerful giver. Isn’t it great to learn to know our children as adults and to treat them as equals?

From doing to being: Other challenges that await us in our senior years include seeing value not only in doing but in being. I do not know how to respond when my grandson says, “Grandpa, you are my hero.” Hero? Me? For what? What have I done to deserve that huge complement? I think he is trying to tell me, “Grandpa, relax. I love you for being who you are.”

Humor: “Humor is another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation,” said Victor Frankl. Aging goes a lot better when we can see life’s unpleasant realities with a measure of humor. When President Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, “If I had two faces, do you think I would be wearing this one?” Humor can brighten an otherwise dreary day. It can turn a scowl into a smile or even a laugh. Cultivate it. It is a gift. A hearty laugh is medicine for the soul.

Lifelong growing: Aging undeniably carries with it losses—loss of physical strength, loss of memory, loss of friends through death. Failure to replace these losses with something of equal or greater value is what is known as aging. A live organism keeps on growing. So we make new friends. I planted a peach tree, not knowing if I will be here to eat its fruit. I read the classics I never had time to read, or if I read them they have receded in my memory. I learn to bake bread. Even in old age, “Our reach should exceed our grasp, or what is a heaven for?”

Faith: Many of us live with the thought—Or is it an illusion?—that we grow more spiritual, more Godlike, with age. I am not finding that to be the case. Some years ago I commissioned a sign to be placed above my desk that says, “Be patient, God is not finished with me yet.” Though now having exceeded my biblical quota of three score and 10, I still feel unfinished. I feel the need to mature spiritually. In his helpful and readable book Falling Upward, Richard Rohr suggests that in the second half of life we hear the “deeper voice of God.” We build a more mature spirituality on the failures and disappointment of the first half.

With the hymn writer we ask for “a faith that will not shrink. Though faced by many a foe. That will not tremble on the brink, of any earthly woe.” We are emboldened to face our senior years with the promise, ”I will never leave you or forsake you.” What could be plainer?

Ah yes, Browning got it right. God planned a whole, “youth showed but half. Trust God: See all, nor be afraid.”

Edgar Stoesz is a member of Akron (Pa.) Mennonite Church.