Books, greens & unfinished business

I recently had lunch with very busy insurance executives and since the topic was about insurance, I raised the question on how prepared were they for retirement or even semi-retirement. Of course, NO ONE, not a single one, had really entertained the thought or been working on the inevitable.

Society has limited retirement concerns on financial reserves but not about what YOU are going to do for however long you live with yourself. Life insurance and investments are supposed to cover all your financial concerns about retirement. But if we actually studied or listened to retirees, they will tell you they are at a loss, confused or challenged.

Even the most prepared of retirees discover that their learning curve in a new area is harder and longer, their bodies weaker or more fragile, or their personal value system humbled or altered by age and reality. Simply keeping up with the over-enthusiasm or cynicism of today’s youth can be draining.

Judging from the stoic look on the face of my host, I figured that he had enough money saved up or life insurance, maybe even a “Golden Parachute” when they kick him out of the corporate plane when he reaches 60 or 65, which ever works for the accountants.

His face changed dramatically when I pointed out that I am now, according to society, “semi-retired” and I have discovered that entering semi-retirement or retirement officially qualifies as the second mid-life crisis for men. For women it might be third after mid-life and menopause. The term mid-life crisis really stuck with my host since he either just went through it or was on the edge of impending doom.

I call it the second mid-life crisis because like the first one, being ejected from the rat race puts questions or doubts about your “value,” productivity and self-worth. After doubt follows the challenge of proving you still got it, and eventually, technology or nature decides if you still got it or can have something close to what was.

Ironically, in your younger days, you never had time, you always needed more time, you couldn’t find the time to do things. But now, you have so much time, everything slows down to a grueling crawl and you often don’t know what to do with your time.

The first mid-life crisis generally tends to be physiological, sexual and hormonal. The second mid-life crisis, as far as I can tell, is really about how to fill the void created by losing your place in the rat race. I have friends who prepared for their retirement by buying property and eventually putting up a farm, others did “APOstolic” work or time with their grand kids here or abroad.

Others refused to be semi-retired or retired and simply put up a business! Unfortunately, people in this group hardly give themselves a break and end up finding out too late that they should have done more for themselves before they got too old or too sick.

Thirty years ago, I had the unpleasant experience of sorting out cabinets and drawers filled with unread books, still in the box gadgets and toys in their original unopened packaging. These were the little things that my father Louie Beltran collected in his trips, believing he would get to read them, use them, even play with them. He didn’t. He died at 58.

Taking my cue from all of the above observations, I turtle crawl my way to filling the void instead of facing the blank walls. I recently heard someone say: “Just decide you’re going to do it, whatever ‘it’ means, then try to figure out how to do it after.” Many successful people did not know what they were getting themselves into after they decided they were doing it. I decided I was not going to complicate life. I simply did what I had not done as they came along.

As today’s title suggests I started to read the books I kept buying but merely piled up or kept in the farm “to read in my free time.” Yeah, sure! But once I picked up the books, I discovered that I chose the right titles for my future Me in the Now. For example: “Atomic Habits” or a 1977 book on hydroponics that is beginning to read like an introduction to planting and plant care and nutrition.

Our common PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder from COVID has caused many of us to pull back socially, or close doors of homes to the pre-Covid dinners or lunches with friends or even business associates. Problems with hiring helpers even made things worse, forcing people to close off certain rooms, limit human traffic, etc.

The thing is, experts and research now tell us that we need to open those doors and reconnect socially with people because having a regular community of people with shared values and support prolongs life. In order to fill in the void, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Aside from having community, bring in the machines, the exercise machines, recondition your street bikes and just like that, you are filling the void created by having too much time.

As for unfinished business, I suggest we each make a list. Mine started with my abandoned roof jungle of plants that has now become a seedling nursery. That extended to planter boxes in the farm, in the future the plan is to create the trial farms. What it turns to we leave up to God. Whether you’re retired, semi-retired or under-employed, that’s just a term they use for people who agree not to work.

Clint Eastwood never retired and everyday he refuses to let the “old man” in the room.

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