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Why Retirement? Forget it!

When I was a child, we had fireworks every November 5th. On the box were written the instruction “light the blue touch paper and retire”. Later this was developed to “stand well back”. Now, I think that is what people do when they embrace the idea of retirement, they stand well back from life and for many this is the beginning of the end. Life is about learning; learning is living and for most of us living and learning is working. It is engagement.

The other day the children laughed at me when I referred to a spider as a person. The spider, female in this case, from my point of view, had rights just like you and I. Some people become spider phobic but all she was doing was living her life and doing her work.

All beings on the planet from ants to elephants do work they are all productive. However there are two types of work. Primary work, that is getting up in the morning and going about the business of finding food, creating shelter and safety and raising the next generation and, secondary work, that is when we allow, or expect other people to do the primary work for us. To allow this to happen human beings invented money.

With money we no longer all need to undertake primary work like all the other species do. We are able to do abstract things with our time and collect tokens (money) for doing it. We can then exchange money for food and shelter and safety.

There are less and less people undertaking primary work. The majority of people undertake secondary work and use the money they earn to pay other people to do the primary work for them. This means that we can be unproductive all our lives, paying other people to do the production for us. This makes us unlike any other species on earth. In any other species, when an individual ceases to undertake primary work they die. They have no food or shelter and no money to get others to do it for them.

Question: When did you last undertake anything that could be considered primary work? By that I mean that you actively created shelter, food or safety? It would seem to me that when we lose touch with primary work, and the majority of us have, we have already retired from the primary work of life. It is as though we become detached from the essential energy of life.

There is a strong case for not retiring at all at any point in life. I suspect that true primary workers never really do, they remain physically active throughout their lives. When secondary workers officially retire many of them go into decline. I see many clients who retired early at 55 or 60 who, by the time they are 75 have lost the meaning of life and are slipping into depression.

If you are a primary worker the evidence is that you will live a longer and happier life if you carry on working for as long as possible. If you are a secondary worker I strongly recommend that when you officially retire that you undertake some primary or, better still, consider not retiring at all.

Reason not to retire

1. We know that it is in the process of engagement and life long learning that creates new brain cells and that people remain younger.
2. When people become physically less active and more sedentary they develop more diseases.
3. Those that maintain a working function maintain and develop social relationships and maintain a sense of belonging.
4. Most productive people have a stronger sense of self and self-esteem.

I could go on, and on. I guess one big one that has hit the western industrial world is that supporting retired people costs much more money than anyone ever expected and we can’t afford it. This is where the money token idea begins to breakdown.

At what point do we stand back from life, do we retire? For some people this begins at fifty and for others it never happens. My definition of success and happiness is waking up with a smile on your face, feeling that you have something that you truly want to get out of bed for something to go and do that is both meaningful and fulfilling. For many this is called primary work.

Whether you do it for money, or for the love of it, don’t stand back, remain involved and engaged in the process of life and living. I promise you that you will be happier.

Take care

Sean x

How Ageist are you?

I think that there is a problem with the concept that we seem to have in relation to age and ageing. Age seems to have become the thing that people fear and wish to avoid which is strange because it is the one thing that will, to some extent or another happen to us all.

The crazy thing is that you never actually get there, you never ‘really’ become old. As my adopter Grannie would say, “it is just this body that doesn’t work, I am really 18 inside”. It is all to do with perception. Whatever age you are now those younger than you will represent youth, while those older than you will represent age, it is all relative.

Once I did some consultancy work with a privately owned company. It was run by a 92 year old woman who had been doing so since her husband died ten years previously. Her son, aged 72, ran the office. While in discussion with her about sending out some flyers she said to me ‘you’ll need to talk to the boy about that’. At 92 I guess that 72 represents youth.

Equally to the fifteen year old someone of thirty years can seem old. I can remember being at secondary school and the feelings that we had of total disgust when a mother of a friend, in her thirties, became pregnant. It seemed revolting to us that such old people should still be having sex, ‘how gross’ we all thought.

It seems that as a society we have learned to value youth, or that which is behind us, and fear age or that which is ahead of us. The drive to stay looking young through cosmetics, Botox or surgery gives a value to youth that we deny to age. This has tragic consequences for our futures. Because if we learn to dislike age and attempt to avoid our ageing and getting older, as we all shall, we are likely to move into a state of self dislike or even disgust in later life. This can lead to us hating the last part of our lives and risk falling into depressive and miserable states.

But, there are other ways to be. How about we reverse the process and learn to value age again? In the 1960’s Roger Daltry from the band The Who sang the song ‘my generation’ he sang the line “I hope I die before I get old”. Interestingly he is now experiencing later life himself at the age of seventy. I wonder if he sees himself as old or if that is what is ahead of him?

So is seventy old? Well, current statistics would suggest that Roger has at least twenty years left, and may be more if he looks after himself. The average age of death for women in the UK is approaching the mid nineties, with men a few years younger. But, that age expectation is increasing all the time with one in four people alive now being expected to live to one hundred plus.

Ok, so you are going to get older than you are now, how does that look? Positive or negative? If you look backwards how does that feel? Do you crave to have again what you had before? Or are you happy to embrace your advancing years with joy, happiness and expectation?

What is good about age?
Age represents knowledge, experience, insight, and understanding. Maturity, for some a dodgy word, represents a calm way of looking at life, less stress, more fun and happiness. Of course those that have taken time, when younger, to attend to their own fulfillment will be reaching their goals as they get older. But then there is life long learning. Perhaps ageing begins when we stop learning.

Why retire?
Even if you get to the point where your life career ends why stop working? If life is for learning and that never ends then keep going, stay young active and be happy, whatever your age?

Take care and enjoy your life
Sean x

According to Wikipedia kindness is a behaviour marked by:

‘ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognised as a value.’

Google defines kindness as:

‘the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate’.

How do you define it?

When I was a child I read the book ‘The Water Babies’ by Charles Kingsley. In the story there was a wonderful character called Mrs Do As You Would Be Done By. She ensured that whatever the children’s behaviour; it was reflected back to them. Later in my travels I discovered the laws of Karma and Dharma and the concept that ‘what goes around comes around’.

If the law of karma is real then we have a vested interest in treating other people well, on the basis that we will also be treated this way. This can make acts of kindness and altruism begin to sound too calculated though, in terms of social stability, in any community or group of people, treating others fairly means that I will be treated fairly as well.

In Ayurvedic psychology acting positively and serving the needs of others without expecting anything in return is termed ‘Bhakti’. People such as Ghandi, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela, amongst many others, would fall into this category. People who have given of themselves without great reward or aggrandisement. You will probably know of people in your life or community who have been Bhakti.

Kindness or treating other people fairly and well is enshrined in most religions and philosophies. In the Ayurvedic and Hindu worlds acting in the right way is termed dharma.

‘The word “dharma” has multiple meanings depending on the context in which it is used. These include: conduct, duty, right, justice, virtue, morality, religion, religious merit, good work according to a right or rule, etc. Many other meanings have been suggested, such as law or “torah” (in the Judaic sense), “logos” (Greek), “way” (Christian) and even ‘tao” (Chinese).’

Though there is no équivalent word for dharma in the Western lexicon.

‘Dharma has the Sanskrit root dhri, which means, “that which upholds” or “that without which nothing can stand” or “that which maintains the stability and harmony of the universe.” Dharma encompasses the natural, innate behaviour of things, duty, law, ethics, virtue, etc. Every entity in the cosmos has its particular dharma — from the electron, which has the dharma to move in a certain manner, to the clouds, galaxies, plants, insects, and of course, man. Man’s understanding of the dharma of inanimate things is what we now call physics.’

For me, psychological or spiritual dharma is to act in the right way, in every situation all the time. An ideal to aim for though hard to achieve. This is what we in ‘live in the present’ term mindfulness. To be mindful in the moment, to be aware of yourself and the other people around you means that you can do nothing but act in the right way, which is to act with kindness. Being mindful, being positive, being kind and being happy are all facets of the same attitude of mind and way of being.

Kindness is in the same spectrum as love. It is part of the positive forces that brings people together, solves problems and creates happiness.

However you would express your acts of kindness, it would be good if we could all spend the day being consciously kind.

Be happy.

Sean x

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Do you ever feel like you have lost the will to carry on, or have no energy to get going? Why is it that some people seem to have boundless energy while others have none at all?

At Live In The Present we run courses and therapy for people that wish to change some aspect of their life. For some this is easier than for others who can find it the hardest thing in the world. When the going gets tough what is needed is will power, but what is it?

Well, ‘power’, as an engineer would define it, is ‘the ability to do work’. Engines and motors are all rated by their ability to complete the task required, they have a power rating. Power, when associated to us is a our ability to complete the task before us. For some the task will be a problem and for others a challenge.

When the task is seen as a challenge it is easier to face and overcome. Challenges can normally be related to plans and strategies that take us to the solution. When the task is seen as a problem it all becomes so much more difficult to deal with. At this point people commonly become stuck, demotivated, lose direction and, often give up. This is where the willpower comes in.

A quick Google of ‘Will’ results in…

1. the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.”she has an iron will”
2. synonyms: determination, firmness of purpose, fixity of purpose, will power, strength of character, resolution, resolve, resoluteness, purposefulness, single-mindedness, drive, commitment, dedication, doggedness, tenacity, tenaciousness, staying power, backbone, spine

At LITP we describe ‘Will’ as persistence and consistence towards a defined goal.

The goal might be physical, social, intellectual, emotional, financial, business etc,etc, absolutely anything, there are no limits. Here are some tips that might help you get your head around willpower,

1: Set a goal

To achieve anything you need to be clear about what it is that you want or where you are going. The lack of clarity at the outset will often lead to failure. The clearer the goal the easier the result. If your answer to the question “what do you want?” is “I want to be happy” this will not work for you, it is too vague. To be clear you have to know what it looks like, feels like, smells like, what colour it is, what shape it is.

Tip: Write your goal as a sentence or descriptive paragraph. If you can explain it clearly to another person then you will know what it is.

2: Resources

What do you need? Resources may include ideas and images, plans and organisation, money and other practical resources, market testing to make sure that it works, and the physical manifestation of the idea in the physical world. It is important to realise that other people are also resources.

Tip: Write it all down and share it with someone else. perhaps a mentor.

3: Plan

A plan is like creating a route that describes your journey to your destination. But plans are never set in stone. A good plane is flexible and can adapt to changes and unforeseen challenges.
Tip: To move a project from idea to goal requires a plan. By using mind maps , spider/Venn diagrams are a good way of setting out your ideas on a flat piece of paper that can then be moved into a plan.

4: Mentorship

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. On the basis that you can do things the easy way or the hard way learning from other people’s mistakes can make it much easier. If you talk to other people, use a mentor or a coach you can save your self so much time, avoid making mistakes and allow someone else to feed your will.

Tip: You will be amazed at the people who will be prepared to help you. All you have to do is ask. Many people will help you for free some, such as coaches, will charge a fee. You may have someone in mind already, you may need to talk to people and ask around.

5: Stay focussed

The ability to remain on task will normally mean the ability to live in the present. That requires that you let go of the past and stop worrying about the future. In short, this is the contents of the LITP book. On a daly basis we recommend that you use Mindfulness to enhance your ability to stay focussed, this means some ‘zoning’ time every day. The ‘Mindfulness Toolkit’ from the LITP site will be of use to you especially the ‘morning focus’ and the ‘evening review’.

Tip: Take time out every day to clear and focus your mind. We also recommend headspace.com and One moment meditation on you tube.

6: Stay Motivated

Everyone on every project will find times when their energy has gone or is very low so that it is really hard to get going or keep going. So, build this into your time line and your plan so that you have extra time to take it easy when you need to. Look after yourself, take time out and make sure you have some fun. ‘Down time’ is often a good time to review and audit where you are up to and to decide if things need to change or adapt.

Tip: Expect to need some ‘down time’, allow for the fact that you will need to take breaks and have fun.

7: Get Networked

Every week groups of people meet to network. These are often business groups but there are other interest groups like writers groups or self help groups. These are really useful to keep you motivated, focussed and on track.

Tip: Google your area and find groups of people that you can network with.

8: Get The WillPower Habit

Willpower, like every other behaviour that we have, is a habit. A habit is something that we do without thinking about it, we just do it. If your habit is to keep going, despite the challenges, then it is simply what you do. We know that to develop a habit takes an initial 30 days of consistent and persistent activity. This creates new brain cells that is the neural circuit that is the new habit. However, to get this habit into longterm memory so that it is there for ever takes a further 60 days. To create the will power habit takes 90 days of persistent, consistent behaviour.

We often think that willpower is a magical ability that only a few have. The reality is that we all have willpower once we tap into it. Anyone can contact their will power as an everyday habit by working persistently and consistently towards a given goal. perhaps that last thing to say is that keeping fit, eating well, limiting alcohol and caffeine and, getting enough sleep will aid you in your task.

Take care

Sean x

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Sean and Ed did a podcast on how to be alone and it got me thinking. So here is my offering for those of you facing Christmas alone, with thanks and credit to David Harkins.

It starts around the beginning of November, maybe earlier. It is the same each year and there is no escape. Christmas ads on the TV, decorations being put up in the shops and houses lit up like Blackpool illuminations. Everyone asks each other ‘What are you doing for Christmas this year?’

This question can cause feelings of panic and desperation for someone who has lost a loved one in the last year, or lost a relationship that was important to them. I love Christmas and everything about it especially being with the people I love. Don’t get me wrong it also used to be filled with stressing myself out, trying to have everything perfect for the big day. Then I started working in a cancer centre and the meaning of Christmas (and life really) changed.

Suggestions for facing Christmas without a loved one:

DO try to talk to your friends and family. They will be grateful if you tell them what you need as they care about you and will be conscious of your loss. Just because they don’t mention it, it doesn’t mean they don’t care, it just means they don’t know what to say and are afraid of upsetting you.

DO try to schedule time in the day to perform a small ritual in memory of your loved one. Light a candle, look at some happy photos, and tell others of a happy memory that you shared. Shed a tear, but be grateful for the time you had them with them and focus on this rather than their absence in your future.

DO try to plan at least one thing during the day just for YOU. Be selfish. If you want to watch your favourite TV programme with a glass of wine, or go for a walk to a favourite spot or indulge in your favourite treat, make sure you are able to plan this into your day and visualise it and look forward to it. Your loved one wouldn’t want you to feel miserable all day.

DO try to ask for support from friends. If you must be alone, ask a friend to call you at a set time so you can share a favourite memory of your absent loved one.

DON’T be a martyr. Tell people how you feel, and how difficult this Christmas will be for you. Don’t expect people to read your mind or intuitively know what you need. If you haven’t had an invite try asking someone if you can pop in during the day. Your true friends will be more than happy to help and support you through this difficult time.

DON’T beat yourself up if you feel sad and depressed or cry; know that this is completely normal and that the first Christmas will be the worst. Look into the future and believe that it will get easier. If you feel really desperate don’t forget you can always call ‘The Samaritans’ on 08457 90 90 90 or cruse on 0844 477 9400. if you just want an ear at the end of the phone. It is not weak to reach out for help. You are grieving and you are in pain.

DO try and find an inspirational reading or poem that you can read during the day if you feel down. Choose this in advance and know that it will lift your spirits if things get too bad; this is your back up plan.

DO enjoy a Christmas drink, but avoid numbing your pain with alcohol. This will just make you feel worse in the long run. Have a glass or two, but know your limit.

DO try to have FUN. I know this is the last thing you want to hear but all the clichés are true, ‘Life goes on’ and ‘life is for the living’. Above all think about if your loved one would want you to have fun. I don’t feel it is disrespectful to laugh during your darkest times; sometimes it is the only way to survive.

DO celebrate when you get to the end of the day; you took control and not only survived, you found some pleasure in the day, and you will enjoy many more Christmas days and create new special memories as well as always remembering the special times you shared with your loved one.

An inspirational poem by David Harkins

He is Gone

You can shed tears that he is gone,
Or you can smile because he lived,
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared,
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on,
You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on

David Harkins

I will make sure I find some quiet time in the day to reflect and be grateful for all the years I had with my Nan & Grandad. As I face the rest of my life without their physical presence I try to keep their memories alive.

I will find ten things that I am grateful for in my life today (everyday i try to find at least three) and make a commitment to myself that I will make the best life possible because I know only to well how precious life is.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas and Healthy New Year.

Much Love

Rie x