Many Retired Men Not Happy in Retirement

There is a strong emphasis in Western society to plan and save money for retirement but the bigger questions of what the money savings tips are really for and what a person really wants to do when they retire are not considered.

A recent Australian study found that men are better than women at saving money for their retirement - but often have no idea how to spend it. The reason is that they have not developed a passion for leisure.

A person's level of leisure involvement during their working years tends to predict their involvement during retirement.

Indeed, people are less likely to start new leisure activities after retirement.

Getting involved in many active leisure activities and social activities while still working is the way to prepare for retirement.

Here are some retirement quotes relating to the difficulty men have in retirement:

A retired husband is often a wife's full-time job.
— Ella Harris

When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking.
— Gail Sheehy

Retired: Too Old to Work — Too Young to Die.
— Written on a T-shirt

In this country . . . men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire.
— Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

Istanbul, Here I Come, Ready or Not!

Photo of Istanbul:

On Saturday I will be leaving for London and then on Monday to Istanbul where I am scheduled to speak on Thursday November 26th about The Joy of Not Working to 2,500 executives, scholars, and students attending the National Turkish Congress on Quality convention.

They are putting me up in an executive suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel (corporate rate is 700 Euro per night) for 3 nights. I won't even tell you how much they spent on the airfare because you wouldn't believe me. This all came about because of The Joy of Not Working being published in Turkish and because this organization's convention theme this year is "Quality of Life." I have calculated the organization is spending a total of anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000 to have me speak in Istanbul - but my fee for my one-hour speech is a modest $3,000.

Following are some subjects related to leisure and work that I willl include in my speech:

• Hard work is no match for relaxed, creative action.


• 90 percent of things worth doing aren't worth doing well.


• Slow down and your days will be longer.

• The journey toward success should feel better than to arrive.


• Only fools are in a hurry to get to anywhere worth going.


• Life's a breeze when we put half as much time into simplifying it as we do into complicating it.


• Be happy while you are alive because you are a long time dead!

The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed, and Overworked — by Ernie J. Zelinski