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Three Years Retired: Secrets of Happiness, Reality, and the Inevitable
Money, mediocrity, the entropy of aging, myths of meaning, and yes … the inescapable Reaper.
True story: An elderly woman in a memory care facility met another resident at lunch. She, frustrated from severe hearing loss, found the man’s booming voice reassuring. Lacking short-term memories, they jabbered in circles for hours, recounting tales of their youth. The staff called them “The Loopers” because they replayed the same stories day after day.
They were gloriously happy.
Aging affects each of us differently, but we all deserve the right to happiness.
The first three years
I’ve been retired for three years now, and each year I’ve written about my experiences, insights, and exploits (here is Year One and Year Two). Year Three, I’m pleased to announce, turned out to be the best year yet, packed with insights about life, happiness, and of course, sadness.
Year One felt like a Geezers-Gone-Wild vacation, a funhouse of dazzling opportunities raging for my attention. I squeezed every activity and exploration into my days and flopped into bed every night, dead as a zombie.
