Isn't it amazing how long it takes us to catch up with what is actually going on. It wasn't that long ago that men retired at age 65 and were, on average, dead at age 67. So, you retired and then died. Neat. Simple. But it is not like that anymore and we are struggling with terminology.
Yesterday CNN ran a feature about "Life After Work". Interesting because we do seem to have life after work although the terminology is terminally confusing. The person featured was a "retired" woman who was running a full time cookie making business complete with her own van. I don't get it. Isn't she working?
I can't come up with a useful definition for retirement. Does it mean when someone stops delivering a paycheck to you? In that case I retired over 30 years ago which was the last time I got a paycheck from anyone except myself. In all that time no one made a job for me, no one gave me health insurance. I did it all for myself. It is frequently annoying that when you are self employed, the "employed" deem you to be unemployed and therefore available to do anything they want at any time which they can't do because they are "employed".
So, when exactly did I get to be retired. Or do I get that in the future. And what will happen then. Will the paycheck I never got stop coming.
Of course, you can talk to the nice folks at Social Security and become completely confused. They understand employed, unemployed and retirement and nothing else. Self employed is a major problem. The rest of us seem to be a problem.
I hope someone will shortly let me know what I am so I can respond with something other than confusion. This does not feel like what I thought retirement was and I do not feel on death's door. Maybe for me the problem is self publishing. It seems as a self publisher that I must be unemployed more than retired. Actually, I guess what is happening is that I am having an identity crisis which has been going on for over thirty years. That's it! I'm a self publishing, retired, unemployed person who is having an identity crisis. Now maybe I can create a crisis for someone else as they try to fit that on their check sheet.
Yesterday CNN ran a feature about "Life After Work". Interesting because we do seem to have life after work although the terminology is terminally confusing. The person featured was a "retired" woman who was running a full time cookie making business complete with her own van. I don't get it. Isn't she working?
I can't come up with a useful definition for retirement. Does it mean when someone stops delivering a paycheck to you? In that case I retired over 30 years ago which was the last time I got a paycheck from anyone except myself. In all that time no one made a job for me, no one gave me health insurance. I did it all for myself. It is frequently annoying that when you are self employed, the "employed" deem you to be unemployed and therefore available to do anything they want at any time which they can't do because they are "employed".
So, when exactly did I get to be retired. Or do I get that in the future. And what will happen then. Will the paycheck I never got stop coming.
Of course, you can talk to the nice folks at Social Security and become completely confused. They understand employed, unemployed and retirement and nothing else. Self employed is a major problem. The rest of us seem to be a problem.
I hope someone will shortly let me know what I am so I can respond with something other than confusion. This does not feel like what I thought retirement was and I do not feel on death's door. Maybe for me the problem is self publishing. It seems as a self publisher that I must be unemployed more than retired. Actually, I guess what is happening is that I am having an identity crisis which has been going on for over thirty years. That's it! I'm a self publishing, retired, unemployed person who is having an identity crisis. Now maybe I can create a crisis for someone else as they try to fit that on their check sheet.
posted by Roger | 11:52 AM
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