In a couple of months, I can begin receiving my pension. It’s something I knew was coming, but now that the time has arrived, it seems surreal. This will open up a totally new chapter in my life. I probably won’t quit work, in fact, I’ll probably continue doing much of the same as I’ve done, but cut back to working a day or two each week.
Let’s face it: Everybody has to work to make a living. Unfortunately, this keeps us from doing many of the things we’d like to do. We need to eat, have a roof over our heads and provide for our families, but maintaining a sense of balance in our lives is necessary to accommodate the trade-offs between work and leisure activities.
However, many people derive a sense of identity from their work. For them, their job is more than a paycheck, it has become their life. In our culture, our worth as a person is often determined by our occupation, and if we are well paid, we can achieve a certain level of status within our society we might not otherwise have. We go through many different phases during our lifetime. What was important when we were children has little or no relevance as we mature. Consequently, our needs are drastically different at the end of our working careers than they were at the beginning
I’m fortunate I have a pension because many don’t. America’s priorities have experienced a complete upheaval over the past 30 years. The interests of corporations and the very wealthy have taken precedence over the needs of the average person. We idealize the wealthiest and denigrate the group that is the backbone of our society: the middle class. As we have seen recently, pensions are under attack, creating division within the middle class between those who have a secure retirement and those who don’t. Unfortunately, they are totally missing the point. Everybody deserves a secure retirement.
A pension is nothing other than deferred salary for work you’ve already performed. The crisis atmosphere concerning pensions is due to the fact they have underfunded these obligations for years, even decades. The villains aren’t the people receiving pensions, but the people in positions of authority who were aware of this obligation and chose to ignore their moral and legal responsibility.
When you think about it, life is short. Compared to the life span of a California Redwood tree, a human’s life is a mere blink of the eye. However, it’s not how long you live, but what you do with the time that you have that determines the quality of your life. The last thing you want to do at the end of life’s journey is look back with regrets for the things you could have done, but didn’t.
I’m fortunate to be the position I’m in, but I’ve worked 35 years for it. Now I can start a new phase of my life, where I can take advantage of opportunities and the freedom to pursue things that weren’t possible when I was younger. It’s a nice and even exciting feeling, but I have to admit, it’s a little scary at times. I’m looking forward to it, but the biggest problem that I can see with receiving a pension is you have to get old to get one.
