Creating a Happy Retirement

Image credited to Daily Express

Can a retiree  have a happy retirement?  In a world filled with mystery,killings, and all social vices, will there be a happy retirement.

Happy retirement means a lot to different people , and how they view happiness.

Dona Rosato in her article captioned “5 Secrets to a Happy Retirement” noted that Towers Watson happiness survey found that retirees who rely mostly on investments had the highest financial anxiety. Almost a third of retirees who get less than 25% of their income from a pension or annuity were worried about their financial future; of those who receive 50% or more of their income from such a predictable source, just under a quarter expressed the same anxiety”

Continuing Rosato noted that “More money makes you happier. Once you amass a comfortable nest egg, though, the effect weakens, says financial planner Wes Moss. For his recent book, You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think: The 5 Money Secrets of the Happiest Retirees, Moss surveyed 1,400 retirees in 46 states. The happiest ones had the highest net worths, but Moss found that money’s power to boost your mood diminished after $550,000”

So how do you make the best out of retirement?   Maintain a positive attitude towards life and pension inclusive; according to the book of Job in the Holy Bible "what people fear most always comes to them". And according to Robert Schuler, in his book , “the power of positive thinking “ he noted that  one of the basic ingredient of success is maintaining a positive outlook to life, believe that you will make it and you will definitely make it, believe that you will not , and you will definitely not”

Therefore maintaining a positive attitude in all aspect of life is a pre requisite for all facets of life and Le Boeuf (1987 :21) noted that “your world is a mirror and your mind is a magnet what you perceived in this world is largely  a reflection of your own attitudes and beliefs. And life will give you what you attract with your thoughts. Think, act and talk negatively and your world will likely be negative. Think, act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results”.

According to an article in Yahoo Finance captioned “7 ways to Retire happy” Mandi Woodruff opined that  In a new book, "You can Retire sooner than you Thinks", Atlanta-based investment advisor Wes Moss offers an alternative to the traditional line of thinking. Rather than focus on a dollar amount to reach for, Moss decided to figure out what retirees needed to be truly happy in retirement”
“I wanted to go beyond simple income numbers,” Moss says. “I wondered what it really takes to get somebody to a point where they truly feel they have a cushion and they are also enjoying life.”
“In 2012, Moss conducted an online survey of more than 1,200 workers who had either already retired or were fewer than 10 years away from retirement. He asked them questions about what type of cars they drove, where they shopped, how much their homes were worth, and, of course, how much they had saved for retirement. But he also asked about their passion projects, how often they went on vacation, what types of volunteering they enjoyed, whether or not they were satisfied with their lives, and how much time they put into their retirement planning before calling it quits. (Moss did not ask participants about overall debt levels like student loans and credit cards, but did include questions about their mortgage debt).”
What he found was that more money doesn’t equate to more happiness. The happiest retirees didn’t all drive BMWs or take 12 European cruises a year, either.”

That brings us back to the important idea about what gives happiness, happiness is within, it’s a product of contentment, feel contented about what you have, you will discover that you will be happy, feel otherwise, you will discover that you will be sad, all the days of your life.  As Dolly Paton noted in her song “Coat of many colors”, that she was as rich as she could be in her coat of many colors” and she tries to make people  to understand” linked to contentment is happy married life.

The more a retiree stay connected to a happy love life, the better for him. In a research carried out in the United States has it that people tend to be happy when they are married than when they are not. And as they say that divorce is more devastating; coupled with the financial implications and the legal battle that comes with it. It went on to say that people are more likely to commit suicide when they are disconnected with their love life or life partner.  But I will also add that men are likely also  to commit murder when they are disconnected from their love life and the emotional torture of such act can also drive them to take their own lives.  A horrifying story is “ Zola ‘s Therese Racquin, where the couple Therese and Laurent who had murdered Therese’s first husband so that they could come together, become so consumed by guilt and remorse at the act that their relationship is utterly poisoned by hatred and they decided to murder each other” Sweeney ( 1979:31)

 And according to Eileen Sweeney ( op cited) in her book titled “Another country” Sweeney noted that “marriage was something more rounded than mere infatuation, and once a man had built his home, things were different with him. He must still need his home and would never be the same without it”

But does it relate to Africa, where men are more likely to marry more than one wives. But archival Europe’s observed that men are more likely to commit suicide than women, as they have unwritten maxim it is only a disappointed man that hang himself on a tree, a disappointed woman do not hang herself on a tree but on the neck of the nearest man. But I am seeing it from the view that men are more pressed with financial problems than women as the social mobility of a woman is a straight line graph and the social mobility of a man is undulating graph depicting the full structure of a normal curve.

 What then is the most vital ingredient that ushers in happiness, to me is a robust relationship with God, as experience has shown that those who are in tune with God , the creator are more likely to be more happier than others. This is in agreement with Robert Louise Stevenson who stated “that true happiness consists not in knowledge of good things but in good life, not in understanding but in living understandingly, neither is it great learning but goodwill that joins men to God.

And as Awolowo noted in his book “Path to Freedom”, which he authored while in Calabar prison, he noted that, a big car, a big house, designers clothes are all vanity, what men needed is God’s happiness.

Odunze Reginald C