What is the best way to prepare for old age?
Nurture your health, wealth, and relationships. All become more precious as we age, and all combine synergistically to create that elusive feeling we call happiness.
Health and wealth are dissected in many books and articles, constant subjects in publications from AARP and other organizations that play to an aging population. I joined the fray — I think quite imaginatively — with my book, If you’re so Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? In it I posit a bit cheekily:
SMART is another in a long line of books that attack the same subject with equal passion and credibility, but not one attacks with anecdotal evidence that is relevant to billions of people wallowing in poverty. Here’s a snapshot of why SMART is needed. I read the other day that 75 percent of all Americans are not financially able to retire — to live well — when they run out of working years or hirable, marketable, billable skills … and that they are astonished to realize this simple truth. They are the mass of men who lead lives of quiet desperation.
Relationships are another matter. They are written about less because, I think, they can be counted but not evaluated, and they become fewer and farther between as we age and outlive our friends, family, and business associates. I, for example, at 89 have outlived one wife, a barrel of friends dating back to high school and college in the 1950s, and all but three of my many business associates. To my everlasting good fortune, my kids and grandkids and others have surfaced to fill in the gaps.
I talk about relationships in another of my books, The Power of Being Articulate, The Thoughtful Leader’s Model for Wealth and Happiness. In it, I devote and entire chapter to relationships, and say with blatant certainty the I’m crazy about the idea that happiness is a warm puppy, — the ultimate relationship? — a metaphor that smacks so much of the close relationships that are key, and has been experienced by a large percentage of us.
And I like Freud’s synopsis that happiness is good love and good work, perhaps because I am blessed with both.
On the other hand, I pity the many people I know who drag themselves out of bed every workday and count the days until retirement. If I know dozens of such poor souls, I can interpolate and conclude that there must be millions in the workplace.
I am surrounded with people who are as happy as I am including those that I profiled for the book. Several evolved from distant acquaintances to close friends and confidants after they worked with me to write their chapters, saying that the process led to a greater understanding of their own lives and happiness, forming the basis for becoming even happier
