I was 58 or 59 before it dawned on me that I needed to worry about retirement. I’d had 401Ks in my youth and blithely emptied them when times got tough. I just assumed because I always had made money, I always would. As my 60th birthday approached, I reconsidered what life might be like if I had just social security. My response — I went back for my doctorate and got a job as a professor. At that time, universities still offered pensions — something currently being watered down on the way to perhaps disappearing.

Then I forgot about this age stuff. Until… As I turned 70, I got worried again. So I started researching the problems I might soon be facing. And researching people who were living fulfilling lives into their 70s and 80s and beyond. The result — this website and these blogs. I figured others might also want to be forewarned about problems — and given ideas for upsides.

Then I made my retirement decisions, got moving on new ventures I wanted to try, and started living my retirement — the way it made the most sense to me. So I mostly stopped researching and writing this blog. In the U.S. (I don’t know about other countries), we prefer to ignore that we will get old until it smacks us in the face. It was that way for me.

But… the funny thing is this blog has continued to get traffic. (See what posts are most popular!)

Continue reading “Age-denial eventually ends for each of us” →