Retirement is a time when we no longer have to work for financial security to support our day to day living. We have the 'freedom' to fill in our days with hobbies and travel, and all those fun things that time and money allow us to do.
In retirement, our lives are no longer bound by working 40 hours a week, and having to focus on putting most of our energy into maintaining that.
Retirement is usually a consequence of our own hard work, or someone else's, or just plain good luck - lotto ? A few fortunate people retire at 30, but the majority of the population retire at between 60 and 70 years of age, after a life time of hard work.
I have never forgotten visiting a remote sheep station in outback Australia. It was owned by an 85 year old man. He had a weather beaten wrinkled dark face from a lifetime of hard work on the land. He wore a sweat stained hat and shirt and well worn boots. He still worked on the farm with his son chasing sheep and maintaining the huge property. He was incredibly fit, happy and very alive.
That remote beautiful silent land had entered him, and he into it. When I looked into his twinkling alive eyes, I saw and felt peace, freedom, kindness, generosity and love, a reflection of the land on which we stood, and the star filled sky that was above us.
'Freedom ' had not retired him, he had retired into freedom.
