So many people have postponed retirement because of the recent recession. But shouldn’t people consider more than money when they think about retiring?
Thanks to medical improvements and other quality-of-life advances, we are living longer, healthier and with conveniences that override previous handicaps. How will we know when it is time to live from our financial accumulations? What determines retirement? Somewhere in our thinking, we must answer decisive questions:
• Will retirement be mandatory at a certain age?
• Will I have saved enough to live a quality lifestyle in retirement and have sufficient financial reserves for the unexpected?
• Can I adjust my lifestyle to the available resources?
• Will I have other dependents in my care—children, parents, relatives?
• Where will I choose to retire?
• What will meaningfully occupy my time?
The late Benjamin Elijah Mays still was going strong at age 90. Asked when he intended to slow down, he replied: “If I stop, I’ll drop. I don’t intend to drop.”
Some people choose volunteer service and mission trips as ways of giving meaningful service and occupying their time. Such endeavors do require financial outlay. Can you afford the costs associated with such service, trips, hobbies or creative ventures?
Retirement years can be a time of dream fulfillment. During our working years, dreams for the future give added anticipation to life. Being able to live out those dreams becomes a challenge. Life circumstances sometimes don’t allow us to realize those dreams. One may be forced to modify one’s dreams. What if your dream was to do religious service in Africa in retirement? During a visit there, you discovered your spouse could not adjust to the climate. You could not fulfill your dream at your spouse’s peril. What you do next to fulfill your dreams is very important.
Or suppose you had the same dream for retirement but later realized that in your earlier active life you had not spent sufficient time with your spouse, your children or grandchildren. Suddenly, a new reality demands response. Dreams or family? Which will it be? Financial resources will be a part of that resolution, too.
One further consideration—putting off important dreams until retirement years has severe limitations. You and your spouse may not be physically able to fulfill the dream when the time comes. One pities those who wanted to have a certain travel experience but they only tried to fulfill it when they retired. By then, they were too feeble for the rigors of the trip. Planning for retirement can be done with the thought in mind of living life “one day at a time.”
Emmanuel McCall, pastor
Fellowship Group Baptist Church
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East Point, Ga.
Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.
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