What does retirement mean to you?

I tell people that I never want to retire. I am tired and I want to get UN-tired, not RE-tired.

On a more serious note, retirement to many means the end of a long career and then the struggle to survive, financially and physically. Pensions are the thing of the past and unless one is able to put away a retirement nest egg, they find that they are living off their meager savings and Social Security, which usually is not enough. Additionally, when many Americans retire, they lose their healthcare coverage and no longer afford to pay for it themselves.

This is why we see so many seniors working at Walmart, fast food restaurants and grocery stores. For some, they just don’t want to sit home, but for the majority, they have no choice but to keep working and they end up finding jobs often taken by teenagers.

If you are one of these seniors, have you thought about starting a new career?

I’ll be 68 in less than two months and I’m starting a whole new career in a field that I’ve never worked in before. I find it is mentally stimulating, which helps keep me mentally alert. It also helps me with social interaction with others, which is an important key to keeping one’s health up in the golden years. It is also helping to provide an additional income which I’m hoping to use to help pay off our debts in 2-3 years. Another key factor in starting a new career so late in life is that I have affordable healthcare benefits for my wife and my myself, on top of Medicare.

Is starting over easy? Yes and no. It depends on my attitude and how I approach it. Do I have to start over? We could financially survive without the new career but all we would be doing is living paycheck to paycheck and heaven forbid anything breaks or happen to our health.

My new career at this late stage in life has many benefits with few negatives. It’s a win financially. It’s a win with healthcare coverage. It’s a win in social interaction. It’s a win in mental activity and it’s a win physically (I’ve lost 22 pounds in the past 6 weeks since starting my new career).

It would be easy for me to just sit home and continue to write posts and enjoy my golden years more, but I believe that by entering into a new career that it will ultimately help keep me healthier and prolong my life. I believe that it will also help keep me mentally more alert and mentally younger than my real age. In fact, many of those I’m in training with say that I don’t come across as being 67, but much younger because of my mental alertness.

Man wasn’t designed to live a life of leisure. We were designed to work and toil and by doing so, it helps us live healthier and longer. Therefore, consider a new career like I’m doing.