Readers and writers blog

So what’s it like being retired? Well, I’ll give you the same answer I’ve given my former coworkers over the past four years. Retirement is, in a word, great.

But it’s not for everybody. And for those of you who are planning to do it someday, I’ll have some free advice¹ a bit later on.

Being retired is waking up in the morning — at any damned time you please — and knowing that the hours ahead are for anything you want to do within your physical and fiscal limits.

As I am writing this, I have just finished visiting our blogroll. I spent 10 minutes at dooce watching a video about a Japanese girl and her dog and then wiping away the tears behind my glasses. I spent five minutes with the pseudonymous Conrad H. Roth recounting his five-minute visit with British writer-translator-raconteur Stanley Chapman and then another 20 minutes looking up all Roth’s references to Victorian writers. (He wonders, by the way, why we have forsaken much of Victorian culture.)

I also spent an hour slogging with Don Croner through the wilds of Mongolia on his camel trip to Ülzii Bilegt, a remote ruins in a southern province on the Gobi Desert. A century ago, this was a hideout for Dambijantsan, a legendary leader who claimed to be a Buddhist lama but is remembered chiefly for his military and political skills fighting for Mongolia’s independence. On the way, Don and his native crew survive a camel stampede, confront a rare Gobi bear and visit with sinister spirits at the ruins. (God, I wish I had a better map of Mongolia.)

Meanwhile, I wrote part of this entry while walking on a treadmill.

Now, some retirees complain that they are prisoners of their easy chair and television. Me, I love our easy chair, and I love TV — especially Mike and the Mad Dog, an afternoon sports radio program that’s simulcast on the Yankees cable network. I don’t care so much for sports, but I love watching guys talk about them, especially in New York, a place that still seems exotic to a country bumpkin like me, even though I’ve lived here off and on over the past 30 years.

The rest of the day? I don’t know.

That’s a common complaint of retirees — facing hours that they no longer have to work. All the hours of the rest of their lives. Hours that will be empty unless they can find some way to fill them.

Well, I love empty hours. But that’s because I’m basically a lazy guy. I like nothing better than to dawdle, or, as my grandmother would say, to lollygag around. Because it gives you time to think, to dream, to savor just being alive. Yes, it also gives you time to think about dying. But that’s a subject I resolved some time ago: It wasn’t so bad before I was born. I expect it to be just as comfortable after I’m gone.

So here’s my advice:

1. Get a good education. And don’t stop with graduation.

2. Pay attention to your health. Try not to eat too much junk food. And walk. To nowhere. For at least 20 minutes a day. I’m no physical specimen, but as I approach 70, that treadmill is looking like a good investment. The arthritis has now moved into my hips, but I just walk slower.

3. Learn to live frugally, however you define it. I define it as simple clothes, simple foods like beans and brown rice, an out-of-date but serviceable car. I learned about frugality by retiring once when I was approaching 50. I lived in a truck for five years, then went back to work. I don’t recommend this to everyone, but it’s a good way to find out what material possessions you really need.

4. And this is the most important: Be lucky¹. Here’s how I have been:

• My parents were poor, but they gave me good genes, including a healthy body and an innate ability at languages. I was drafted during the Vietnam War, but I was sent to a mountaintop in Turkey to listen to Soviet tank maneuvers.

• My work history was mostly moderate-paying jobs, but it was long. (Another advantage of growing up poor — you start working early, all through school.) And since I’m basically frugal, I can live on Social Security.

• Before it’s too late, find a good spouse². One who doesn’t mind a lollygagger, who understands that while you may be absolutely charming in company, you basically like to stay at home and . . . lollygag.

Well, I’m exhausted. Time for more dawdling, dreaming and staying alive.

– Sid Leavitt

NOTES:

1. See? Now you know why the advice was free.

2. You’re the best, hon.