WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 3

Articles In This Section:

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 1

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 2

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 3

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 4

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 5

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 6

· WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT - part 7

At the age of 55 Jim stops being able to find work except such positions as night watchman or elevator operator in one of the run down buildings in the industrial part of town. And Sally can only occasionally find employment when her health is up to it, doing housework.

At 65 Jim Average gets his Social Security money and they sell their house and move down to Southern California to retire. However, the amount of Social Security money coming in hardly pays for living on the simplest standard. They get by only because one of the children is able to send them a few dollars each month.

These may sound bitter, the above accounts, but they aren't far off the beam. In one case you have a success and in the other you have an average life.

For my money, neither of them are worth the living. If I had to make a choice I'd probably choose to be Sam Lucky rather than Jim Average, but neither of them has lived a full life. And as far as retirement is concerned, both of them wound up retired at the age of sixty-five in circumstances which neither can enjoy. Actually, it can be a great deal tougher than even the life of Jim Average which we've painted above. At least he reached the age of sixty-five, which a good many people never do, the pace of modern life being what it is. And at least Jim was able to get jobs until he was 55, a good many find themselves on the scrap heap long before this.

And I didn't even deal with the fact that while both Jim and Sally were working, trying to make ends meet, their kids were out on the streets probably taking their master's degree in juvenile delinquency. Nor did we mention that in the life of Sam Lucky he had a fine chance of becoming an alcoholic along the way in view of the pressures upon him. Or that Mrs. Lucky, in spite of her psychiatric visits, had a strong chance of winding up in a mental institute under the tensions of her frustrated life.

We haven't dealt, either, with the probability that after the age of thirty or so there was no longer any real love between Sam and Lois nor Jim and Sally. You don't lead the kind of existence they did and still retain the affection with which you started marriage.

Never in the history of any nation has there been such a large percentage of a people in mental institutions. Never has there been such a degree of juvenile delinquency. Never have there been so many divorces. Never has there been such insecurity in the hearts of a people, and our suicide rate is second highest in the world.