Tell Giselle: Planning for retirement means letting go of more than a job

This quandary from a man considering the date of retirement showcases many tradeoffs that may actually be painless:

I am going to be notifying my employer I will be retiring but have not been able to settle on a date. This is in part because my wife does not want me to retire. But it is also because I am concerned that this change to our lifestyle is more about money than it is about the quality of time I have left to live.

We went to a financial planner to discuss options. We have been saving steadily over the years and do have a nest egg. But still we are being directed to look at considering part-time employment to offset the loss of my salary as this would help hold us to the lifestyle we enjoy. I am not excited about a part-time job.

I am open to hearing your take on retirement.

G: Get on with it, as my wise father would say. If you are no longer fulfilled, or as fulfilled, as you once were with your career, it is fine to move on. But before you do, you can consider taking an extended break from the job. There are paid family leave options, as well as using any accrued vacation time.

You would benefit from a bit of space from your current rhythm to see how it feels to have the pressure removed and what it does to your quality of life.

If you are unable to take an extended leave of several weeks, I suggest you do a deep dive into your finances to see what you are willing to do without. Then make the adjustments so you can begin living without the burden or pressure of employment.

This comes from mahwahhh, someone who is currently counseling a woman who is of retirement age, has never smoked, and got the shock of a lifetime over a year ago that she has metastatic lung cancer.

It is not that I have not thought of death, or unexpected terminal diagnoses before. Far from that.

It is just that I can so clearly see that it is time for everyone to get on with it. Get on with living well, happy, and whole now while you have that opportunity. If you don’t, you will only be cheating yourself of new discoveries and joys.

You might keep in mind a Native American teaching that says: Be thankful for blessings already on their way.

This could easily mean the blessings of abundance you don’t even realize are already there for the taking.

Feeling good does not always require a full set of choppers

I received an email from someone I admire. It was one of her monthly emails she sends out to those in her professional and personal circle whereby she sprinkles in a bit of uplift and levity.

The wisdom in it is so profoundly useful to so many challenging situations I routinely hear about, that I decided to use this space today to convey the experience and lesson.

“I put my teeth in for you,” she wrote, explaining that she said this exact sentence to friends who visited her recently.

I laughed out loud reading that, as it rang so true. I have an elderly friend that I adore, with or without teeth, that would do the same thing for me when I would drop by unexpectedly to check up on her. But really, I knew better. My friend –more like my great grandmother – needed to appear normal to me as she still cared greatly about how she looked.

Maybe some would consider this vanity but not me. Beauty is a gift in my playbook, and not just in the eye of the beholder. Anyone who wants to add beauty to a world rife with pain and sorrow, in whatever unique way they are able to, I cherish.

Side note: In traditional Judaism there are many blessings to be said, not just the one recited over the bread and wine at meals. The one that has made a huge impression on me goes something like this when a person sees or encounters another with a disability or disfigurement: Thank you G-d, Lord of the Universe, for bringing diversity to the world.

It may be a stretch, but I think toothless smiles counts as some kind of diversity. Some of the most beautiful people I have known are toothless, including infants.

Anyway, the email went on to explain that she had a “weird dental issue” that required her four lower teeth be removed.

What she was discovering is that without those lower four teeth – it’ll be some time before she is able to have implants – she is still able to smile comfortably and experience the endorphin benefit that smiling provides.

This is due to the joyful realization that when she does smile now, her lower teeth even when they were there, are not visible. Just her top teeth show.

And better yet, with or without the temporary bridge in place that she was provided, she can delight in smiling.

She’s fortunate that way, and fortunate to realize how much she values the uplift that a smile brings to her and to others who see her smiling.

And so this is how it goes with many of our experiences. Living in our bodies, while they are young and well or as we age and things fall apart or just sag, our bodies are a vehicle for personal growth.

Dealing with teeth issues – whether the situation is about no teeth, few teeth or crooked – gives us an opportunity to grow our compassion for those who live with any of those conditions, but especially with those who do not have the luxury of resources or access to quality dental care and restoration.

Having gone through this kind of dental experience, I think it is nearly impossible not to consider what it is like to walk in the shoes of those who are not as fortunate as those of us who do have teeth – lovely or twisted – and not feel both grateful, and somewhat deflated simultaneously, with the realization we so often take for granted or discount how many of the little, and big, graces we possess.

There’s wisdom in those teeth, and maybe that is why the tooth fairy comes to collect them from us.