Prepare for Retirement

If I told you that I’m preparing to retire, what would be your first reaction? Maybe you would be shocked; you wouldn’t know what to say. Maybe you would say: “Are you crazy” or “congratulations”.

Retirement is not the end of life, but rather the beginning of another. Settling down to retire is no longer an easy thing. If we can, however, prepare a little in advance, maybe we can make it a bit easier. Do you really want to retire early? How are you going to enjoy your life after retirement? Perhaps some of you are asking these questions. Perhaps some of you are looking at others and thinking”You look so young, why would you be considering this already?” In my opinion, these are things that must be dealt with throughout our lives. Due to modern medicine and biotechnology, humans are living longer than before. Now when people retire they can look forward to 20 to 30 years to live. It’s a long time, isn’t it? Yes, I am really considering retiring, maybe not NOW but some time in the next ten or fifteen years. However, I feel that I should start planning now.

    I think that there are three important key factors, which should be considered, they are, money, health and attitude.

    Money is a basic necessity because the journey from birth to death, for a human being, is a long one. Once you retire, you do not need to work like you did before, but this also means you do not have any income. I feel that people should plan carefully to make sure that we have enough money and are ready for retirement. People should buy stocks, mutual funds and insurance policies, while we are working. Once we retire our assets will create some passive income, which means that we can still depend on having enough money each month for living expenses.

    Health is also a big concern, Yap, as a person grows older there is a big change in the physical structure of the body and a slow-down in some of the functions. Sometimes chronic diseases can affect our lives as well. We should start preparing for it now. There are three things that we can do to make us healthier. One is a regular diet: We shouldn’t eat too much, eat anything after 8:00 p.m., maintain our body weight, not smoke and not drink alcohol. The second is regular exercise: we should do exercise three times a week for at least 30 minute at a time. Third is getting a good night sleep: get up early every morning maybe around 7:00 am, and go to bed before 11:00p.m. . If we maintain keep it a habit every day, we will

 keep our bodies in good condition.

    Attitude is an important factor, besides money, health, retirement costs spiritual wealth. We should think over what we should do after retiring, and that could make retired life more active. Do you want to wear a nightshirt, using a remote, sit in front of the TV, all day long doing nothing? (Just like that) or do you want to do something that you have never done before? It depends on whether your attitude is positive or not. You should be optimistic everyday of your retirement life.

Do you want to retire early? Do you REALLY want to retire early? (YES) Yes, everybody wants to retire early. But how are you going to enjoy your life after retirement? There is something I want to remind you: prepare enough money, keep a healthy condition and always be optimistic. If we start to prepare these things right now, I’m sure that ten or fifteen years later, we can take off our tie, take off our shirt, put on our sunglasses, take our kick board and go to Hawaii. Ladies and Gentleman. Do you want to retire early? (YES) But don’t forget that “Sitting and talking is not enough, you should stand up and start doing it.” Remember, Actions speak louder than words.