Are You 2 Young 2 Retire?

by Judy Silberstein

(September 25, 2008) With the financial markets in turmoil, this may not be the best time to plan for your retirement. On the other hand, it may be just the right time and you may want to check out a new course entitled “Too Young to Retire: Plans for the Bonus Years of Your Life” being offered through Larchmont Mamaroneck Continuing Education by Leslie Garwood, a psychotherapist, life coach and certified facilitator for the program 2Young2Retire.

It’s not about money, but about creating “the happiest and best bonus years” for the two or three decades most baby boomers are expected to live after they have retired.

Ms. Garwood offers the following inspiring story for “all of us baby boomers to consider”:

I saw my old friend Henry, age 85, at a wedding this summer. Assuming he was “retired” from a very successful lifelong business he’d created, (and no longer flying his own plane) I asked what he was up to.

“Working! But on my own terms,” he replied. It turns out that after selling off the business seven years ago, leaving him enough money to do anything forever, he became bored within a month.

“What am I getting up for? Why bother to shave or get dressed?” he wondered as his wife left for Yoga, a lunch date, and volunteer work.

Henry offered his business management skills, gratis, to a local business, saving them from bankruptcy. Of course they hired him to stay on to grow the business, even though he said, “I would have done it whether I got paid or not! I’m needed and useful!”

A second business has hired him as well, and he now works “the days I choose and take time off when I want. I don’t notice my aches and pains, which is what retired people focus on.”

Like Henry, people aged 50 and up are creating extraordinary “encore careers,” starting businesses, or just fulfilling lifelong dreams, suggested Ms. Garwood. She points people to many examples at www.encore.org and www.2young2retire.com.

Interested in the course?

Leslie Garwood will teach 2Young2Retire

Locally, “Too Young to Retire: Plans for the Bonus Years of Your Life” will be offered in the Larchmont Mamaroneck Continuing Education program this fall. In a 4-week workshop, attendees will meet other like-minded people to shape a future based on well-considered choices.

By revising old definitions of “retirement,” students will be joining a world-wide conversation on longevity planning. Using the book Too Young to Retire: 101 Ways to Start the Rest of Your Life, course participants will consider possibilities for a lifestyle that “retires” a 24/7 life of leisure. They will create a plan that considers whatever combination of work, leisure, travel, entrepreneurship, civic engagement, ongoing learning, and health/wellness they desire.

Designed for individuals, the course also welcome couples as they consider how and when to transition out of former work roles.

Registration for the course, which begins on October 22, can be found at www.lmcce.org.

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