Don’t Miscalculate the Importance of Leisure in Planning For Retirement
Underestimating the importance of leisure in planning for retirement is the biggest mistake retirees make. They put their finances in order and assume everything else will take care of itself. But retirement satisfaction depends on how you spend your time, not your money.
During the working years leisure is a rare commodity. Overtime, second jobs, family duties and household tasks leave little time to ourselves. Much of our free time is eaten up sitting in traffic and weekends are jammed with chores. Many employees even forgo their two week vacation, fearing a pile up of work on their return. Technology, rather than freeing up time, encroaches more and more on our breathing space. We answer calls when walking down the street and prop up our lap top while flying to our next appointment. No wonder it’s hard to believe leisure could ever be a concern.
But leisure is a very different thing when it is the only time you have. After an initial honeymoon, retirement leisure poses many unexpected challenges. Once free of the constraints and responsibilities of work, we are also free of the identity, purpose, and social contact our jobs provide. The need to be productive, recognized, challenged or social will not disappear the day you retire but must be met in new ways.
Planning for dynamic use of time is as essential to a successful retirement as planning for a secure financial future. Those who fail to adjust to unstructured, unlimited time become bored, depressed and aimless. But those who take advantage of the opportunities leisure offers, make retirement the best time of their lives.
Source:Ezinearticles.com
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