Retirement

Subject: Retirement.

What right do we have to make predictions about our lives in a market driven economy.
By this I mean any sort of social contract where you pay instalments to obtain a financial sum of money at the end of the contract.
The years in which you pay a contribution on the assumption that a pension will be paid  on the anniversary of your 65th birthday has been changed. Last year due to people living longer the anniversary date was moved to 66, this morning the government announced a new date, 67 and who knows as they struggle to cover the books how long it will be before 68 is rung up, 69, 70, 71, perhaps in a few years 72 will be the date we can expect to retire and receive the state pension.
People who look forward to retirement and a pension to live on have a number of issues to face. 

Is retirement all that it is cracked up to be ?

Is work such a bad thing ?

Have we factored in the overall deterioration we undergo in the latter stages of our life?

The spectre of losing close friends and family and of course dying ourselves ?

With these amendments, has our keenness to retire been thought through properly or should we not count our blessings to be in work, being economically active in a remunerative sense, evolving those work based relationships which have been the substance of our lives for such a long time. The sense of our usefulness is bound up in those skills we honed over so many years at work. The achievements we gained and the emotional reward obtained whilst amongst our peers is not so easily replaced after retirement. The void is not easily filled by domestic chores and whilst voluntary work is to be admired it lacks the steely commitment of working for someone who expects a return on their investment.

An active, problem solving mind is one of the most cherished things as we go into old age. The mind can still run a 100yds in 10secs whilst the body is struggling to escape the clutches of the chair. Flights of fancy tempered by the constrict of practical reality are no substitute for the pleasure one gets from delivering the promised employment package of work, on time and under budget.