Retirement Happiness — How to Keep the Spirit of Christmas

Christmas is over. Rather than rushing to the Boxing Day sales, I’ve spent a couple of days sitting quietly and pondering how to keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart. These are slow days at our house. There is no cooking. The kitchen is closed —  except for the fridge and the pantry where […]

Retirement Happiness — The Holy Grail on how to slow down aging

Tactics to slow down aging have taken centre stage in the popular press and online. Most of us know and accept that we can’t prevent aging. Aging is natural.  There is no cure. Despite marketing claims, no product or pill exists to stop the process of aging. But lifestyle choices can help to slow down this […]

Retirement Happiness — How to use your ‘Elder’ Wisdom

If it’s true that we achieve greater wisdom as we grow older, how can we enhance and use our ‘elder’ wisdom? It’s commonly understood that wisdom increases with age.  The storehouses of experience, knowledge, insight and capacity to see life as a ‘big picture’ are said to improve as we grow older. How can we […]

Retirement Happiness — A Reporter’s Take on my Presentation to the CARP chapter in Sarnia

Some of my local readers know that I made a presentation to the CARP Chapter meeting in Sarnia, Ontario last week. Here is a reporter’s take, written by David Pattenaude for the Petrolia Topic newspaper, on the presentation. http://www.petroliatopic.com/2013/11/27/happy-retirement-tips-offered?utm_source=addThis&utm_medium=addthis_button_facebook&utm_campaign=Happy+retirement+tips+offered+%7C+The+Petrolia+Topic#.UpqUdNm0-Ms.facebook    

Happiness in Retirement — Relationships Matter

Relationships matter — if you want a happy retirement. When describing longevity, the popular blog about.com  begins its post with this strong statement on relationships. Relationships are an essential part of health. Isolation and loneliness create responses in the body similar to those of stress. The body does not function as well as when we are […]

Retirement Happiness — Watching your children become parents

What a joy to watch your children learn how to become parents! Six months ago we became grand parents.  More importantly, our son and daughter-in-law became parents. From the first day their pride was visible. They handled the baby carefully and displayed the hyper-vigilance common to all new parents.  Diapering and feeding were time-consuming with […]

How to leave your work and enjoy retirement

Have you truly left your work and career behind? Have you moved past who you were during your career? Do you find yourself beginning too many sentences with words like ” When I ……” and then recounting achievements from career days? Do you struggle with answering the question “what do you do?” at social gatherings? […]

Retirement Happiness — Get pleasure from your habits

Let’s face the truth — we get pleasure from our habits. Habits govern most aspects of our daily lives. They give us a sense of security. Our internal GPS loves habits and drives us to repeat them. Habits give us pleasure because we are emotionally and psychologically attached to certain behaviours and activities.  We do […]

Happiness in Retirement — How to Understand Gossip

Do you understand gossip?  Do you take part in gossip?  Do you ‘share’ information with others? Wikipedia defines gossip as “idle talk or rumor, especially about personal or private affairs of others.  It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts, views and slander.” The word gossip implies mean, malicious, negative talk.  […]