Retirement Living Made Easy - Live Gloriously, Live Happily, and Live Dangerously!

After I wrote a magazine article on how people can be creatively alive in their later years, I received several calls from readers. One caller was June Robertson, who was six months away from her ninetieth birthday. The enthusiasm and energy that she expressed on the telephone was overwhelming. I know people in their twenties and thirties who probably haven't shown that much enthusiasm and energy for more than one minute in their lives.

I learned some very interesting things about June. After her husband passed away many years ago, she never married again. Her income has been below the poverty line on occasion, yet she has managed to travel to Russia, Africa, Europe, and India, as well as several other countries. Unfortunately, she had to cancel a visit to China when she became ill, but she still intended to go at a later date.

June became a public speaker in her seventies. She didn't know she could do it until she appeared as a guest on a radio talk show. The people at the radio station liked her so much that they asked her to take over the show for a week. She was paid twenty dollars a day and enjoyed it immensely. She would have done it for nothing. Showing her love for adventure, June went up in a hot air balloon when she was seventy-eight.

All you television junkies, take heed! When I mentioned television to June, she told me that she watches very little TV and called it the "dumb box." Incidentally, she does have an addiction: books. I would say that if anyone is going to have an addiction, this is a rather good one to have.

When I asked June what advice she would give to us on how to live life to the fullest as we get older, she said that first we must not let our spirits down. Then she added, "We also must live gloriously, live happily, and live dangerously."

Note: This article is adapted from the book 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement (Published in Spanish, Korean, and French but not in English).