When I was 60, I thought I was getting old. Now that I am 90, I find that rather amusing. At 60, I had already lived a substantial life. I had worked, learned, made mistakes, enjoyed successes, worried about things that never happened, and survived problems that once seemed enormous. But looking back over the 30 years since then, I can see several things much more clearly…

The other morning, as I sat down to breakfast – a fresh cup of coffee, an almond cranberry scone topped with yogurt and homemade peach preserves – I realized that this simple pleasure had not happened by accident. The word that came to mind was discipline. I hadn’t particularly wanted to bake scones the evening before, nor had I been eager…

A friend once told me she spent nearly six months deciding whether to move. She made lists. She talked with her children. She visited neighborhoods. She changed her mind more than once. Then one afternoon she laughed and said, “I finally realized I wasn’t trying to find the perfect decision. I was trying to become comfortable with whichever decision I made.”

Every woman of a certain age has known a Big Shot. Maybe it was a husband. A boss. A father. A brother who needed every room to revolve around him. Billy Joel’s 1978 hit was famously about someone trying too hard to be impressive – chasing status, dropping names, performing a kind of bravado that didn’t hold up under its own weight…

You’ve done the research. You know the visa requirements by heart. You have compared property prices across three countries, watched more YouTube videos than you can count, and perhaps even saved a listing or two for a home that made you catch your breath…

Linda retired on a Friday with the kind of farewell most people hope for. There was a luncheon in the office conference room, speeches from coworkers who had become lifelong friends, a scrapbook filled with photographs spanning nearly three decades, and a cake decorated with the words Enjoy Your Next Chapter…

When I turned 70, I finally let myself stop working full-time. I figured I’d keep on teaching a course or two a quarter to “keep busy,” and then play more. The first thing to hit me was loneliness – no meetings or colleagues to talk with. The second punch was having no heart for teaching anymore. I was done…

Have you ever been surrounded by others but felt alone? Or been alone and fully engaged in what you were doing? I sure have, and it got me exploring the distinction between being alone, a circumstance, and feeling lonely, an emotion. Many of us assumed retirement would be lonely. We worried about losing coworkers, routines, or a spouse…

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) estimates that a “comfortable” retirement in the United Kingdom now costs £45,400 (US$60,000) a year for a single person and £62,700 (US$83,000) for a couple. For many people approaching retirement, those figures are sobering…

Most retirement plans assume life will continue more or less as it does today. We picture ourselves healthy, independent, driving where we want, visiting family, enjoying hobbies, and finally having more time to relax. I hope retirement looks exactly like that for you…