Thursday, August 29, 2019

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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Thursday, August 15, 2019

China: Does God live in the Surveillance Cameras and are all those protesters in Hong Kong in their Facial Recognition System?

Have you ever had that feeling that you are being watched? If you live in some regions of China you are AND you are being graded on your behavior I have been told.

As you know, China is ruled by a Communist government and because it is, religion is not encouraged. We have been there several times because our son and his family live there. We have seen what a country without any major religion looks like.

Inside the Forbidden City in Beijing the Chinese people stand and meditate near rocks or at a place that the ancient Chinese culture considered to be the center of the Universe. There was a Starbucks so if you worshipped coffee that was the place for you. But no sign of a guiding light anywhere.

from Business Insider, April 29, 2018
I was told several years ago that the head of the Communist party was concerned about the lack of moral guidance for the Chinese people. It seems the Chinese people were not behaving in an appropriate way and that worried the leadership. Crime may have been on the rise.

Forbidden knock-off markets were closed down to simply re-emerge somewhere else.

We saw that lack played out in fist fights on the street and freeways in Shanghai. Loud arguments were not that unusual. Pushing was very common and almost frightening in the subway stations.

The fact that the people of China live in crowded conditions as a result of their population causes aggressive behavior I think. Or it may just be the culture. Who knows.

Now our son lives in Shenzhen on the mainland very near Hong Kong. In that city and others, many video surveillance cameras have been installed. And along with that, "facial recognition" for each citizen has been established. My daughter-in-law counted more than ten cameras (maybe 15) at one intersection near their apartment.

So what is the government doing with all those images you ask. Well...here is the story I have been told.

The Chinese citizens (and maybe the expats too) are being graded on their behavior. They are being punished in a variety of ways for bad behavior. At the end of each month their names are put on a public list ordered according to how well they are behaving themselves. In society, people are being shunned or unfriended as it were because of that list. The government has decided that not only are you judged on your behavior but others are judged based on their association with you based on your actions.

The Chinese government claim is that they are using the technology to catch criminal...that is probably true. I actually don't think that fooling around in China is a good idea.

I don't know about you but the whole idea is the scariest thing I have ever heard. But I think that, because the Chinese don't believe in any higher being, they have put God in the surveillance cameras! Wow!

What do you think.

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CCTV IN China
In China, Facial Recognition is Watching You
China Feeding it's Creepy....

Saturday, August 3, 2019

Word of the Day: First

Retired for 22 years. An experienced retiree
in the best sense of the word. 
I saw a story somewhere the other day about a woman's experience with her husbands first day of retirement. I know...the first day of your husbands new life, retired with no one to be in charge of all day. Think about it.

What do you think that will be like? If you have written a blog post about your first day send me the link in you comment. If you haven't and you are retired, you need to do that soon.

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Blog Post by Me about my husband's retirement: Retirement and Duct Tape

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