It’s never too late to be what you might have been
Living as a stranger in a foreign land is a great privilege. It is also one I enjoyed during a career that included a lot of time living, working and traveling outside the United States — in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. Living and traveling abroad provides many opportunities to gain a new perspective…
It’s love and marriage, not the horse and carriage, that count
Unabridged from my Bonus Years column in the Lifestyle section of The Sunday Capital, Annapolis, Maryland The message from nearly a dozen readers who emailed me last week was loud and clear: I should have explained my four-month absence instead of just showing up last Sunday. The clearest was the shortest: “You’re back! What’s going on??” The short…
Important life lessons spring from overcoming disabilities
Unabridged from my Bonus Years column in the Lifestyle section of The Sunday Capital, Annapolis, Maryland Perspective. That’s one of the advantages of the bonus years. As you pass through your late 50s and then into the 60s and 70s and beyond, you are able to take a more measured assessment of life’s events. Your thinking and understanding…
Retiring boomers to inherit trillions and will leave even more
Unabridged from my Bonus Years column in the Lifestyle section of The Sunday Capital, Annapolis, Maryland. Hello 2015. Presumably we’ve all made our resolutions and, undoubtedly, we’ve already broken some. That’s not cynicism. That’s reality. Many other realities will become clearer in 2015. I’m not thinking of old realities, such as politicians not telling the truth or scandalous…
Old soldiers never die; they just go back to work
Unabridged from my Bonus Years column in the Lifestyle section of The Sunday Capital, Annapolis, Maryland. Ron Edwards may not have nine lives, but he sure challenges the observation of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who said before Congress in 1951 that “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” Instead of fading away after spending more than 20 years…
In business and life, you learn the ropes by untying the knots
Let’s talk about relevance and entrepreneurship. First, relevance. When you reach your bonus years, you are at the top of your game — with lots of wisdom and many skills. But there’s often a problem. In the words of Laurence J. Peter, author of “The Peter Principle,” “Old age is when you know all the…
In real life, like sports, much depends on finishing well
Back in 1997, I attended a daylong seminar on mentoring. The things I learned at this event had a big impact on my thinking and my life — and are among the key experiences that cultivated my interest in aging, especially in how we think about and achieve successful aging. The seminar concluded with an…
It’s hard to beat a sailing vacation on the Chesapeake Bay
Unabridged from my Bonus Years column in the Lifestyle section of The Sunday Capital, Annapolis, Maryland Somebody once said that retirement is like a permanent vacation. Whoever said that deserves the anonymity he enjoys today. Reason: The unknown author either had no experience with a real vacation or he didn’t know any of the retired people I know.…
Public policy and aging: “Houston, we’ve got a problem here”
Unabridged from my Bonus Years column in the Lifestyle section of The Sunday Capital, Annapolis, Maryland In 1967, Israeli politician and diplomat, Abba Eban, said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing — after they have tried everything else” — an observation frequently but incorrectly attributed to Winston Churchill. Regardless of who said…
Go-go, slow-go and no-go: Longevity and retirement lifestyles
Remember high school physics where we learned Newton’s laws of motion. Think about Newton’s first law, his Law of Inertia: “An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by another force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by another…