Ten Commanments For A Peaceful Retirement

Being a retired person, Sujatha Rao shares some valuable lessons she has learnt along the way for enjoying the evening of one's life

Retirement is one of the most important milestones in our lives. More so now, with working hours getting longer, targets getting steeper, and the economy becoming more and more uncertain in an interconnected world where layoffs and job hops are so very common. Hence, stress is something everyone has to fight with when one is at work, irrespective of the nature of one's job.

Many people hang up their boots much before their actual retirement day. They aspire to opt for early retirement and get into things they always wanted to do. So, when I retired from a full-time career, I was the cynosure of the eyes of youngsters rather than my peer group. Their common refrain was "You are so lucky, Ma'am.

I wish I were in your place." "Oh my God! Isn't it odd that you are wishing to be in the shoes of someone so old, at your age?" I would quip in reply with a chuckle, while inwardly telling myself that I don't blame them. After all, did I not spend the final few years crossing the months off the calendar? Wasn't it true that this activity gave me greater pleasure than the salary that would get credited into my account every month?

Having said that, if one assumes that work is devoid of any pleasure, one would be gravely mistaken. In addition to granting us financial independence and giving us an opportunity to make lifetime friends, it adds so much value to our life in terms of learning. It is just that the innumerable variables involving work, such as the mismatch between what we want and what we get, the daily commute, the difficult bosses, the unpredictable economic environment around us, etc. make it much more complicated, and this often leads to the stress we undergo. A career, being a marathon of multiple decades and not a sprint of a couple of years, also demands a lot of patience, grit, resilience, and perseverance from each of us.