Retreading for Retirement

Loneliness Can Be Deadly for Elders; Friends Are the Antidote

Paula Span reports:

I’ve been talking, in this season of auld lang syne, with older people who have formed friendships late in life. Though they mourn their losses, they are grateful for the capacity to still find warmth, shared values and interests, understanding and trust from former strangers.

She discusses research on negative effects of loneliness and social isolation on older adults as their circle of acquaintances diminishes.

Why It’s So Hard to Train Someone to Make an Ethical Decision

One of the conundrums of ethical decision making is that many moral decisions that are quite straightforward — even easy — to resolve in a classroom or during training exercises seem far more difficult to successfully resolve when confronted during actual day-to-day decision making.

This article is aimed at people responsible for training employees in a business setting, but it raises points applicable to everyone.

And let’s not forget the benefit of wisdom that most of us of a certain age feel we have attained.

What to do when friends turn out to be bigots

This is an issue I’ve personally heard a lot about since the last U.S. election. So I was especially glad to see this:

And let’s get this out of the way upfront: Tolerance is about accepting as valid views that differ from yours. Bigotry is not valid. We do not have the moral luxury of practicing it, defending it, condoning it, normalizing it, or treating it as the aw-gee-bummer downside of a friend who is otherwise! so! great!

There are also some concrete suggestions here for how to deal with any such situations that may arise.

The Deceptions of Luck

My daughter was a competitive swimmer in her youth. When she was chosen as the first among her age group to move up to the next higher training group, her friends all said, “You’re so lucky.”

Of course her success had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with hard work.

This article considers the difference between luck and chance:

Chance, then, is the objective reality of random outcomes in the real world, while luck is a consequence of the subjective value you place on those random outcomes. Luck, we might say, is chance with a human face. Understanding this gives us a clearer view of reality, and a clearer view of reality means we can choose better courses of action.

© 2017 by Mary Daniels Brown

Telling Their Life Stories, Older Adults Find Peace in Looking Back

Whether they are writing full-blown memoirs or more modest sketches or vignettes, many older people … are telling their life stories. Some are taking life-story writing classes at local colleges, libraries and adult learning centers, while others are hiring “personal historians” to record oral histories or to produce videos that combine interviews, home movies and family photos. Some opt to write a “legacy letter,” which imparts values to the next generations.

This article explains how autobiographical writing can help people gain perspective on their lives and come to acknowledge and understand how past experiences have shaped their lives.

The sleep aid/antihistamine that can cause memory loss

Diphenhydramine — found in Tylenol PM and in Benadryl — is a very common over-the-counter sleep aid and antihistamine. But confusion and memory loss have been attributed to its use among the elderly, according to a recent medical review noted by the People’s Pharmacy.

Boomerang Boom: More Firms Tapping the Skills of the Recently Retired

CALL them boomerang retirees: people who exit gracefully after their career at a company, then return shortly afterward to work there part time.

More and more companies are establishing formal programs to facilitate this, for reasons that benefit both the employer and the retiree. Leaving a satisfying job cold-turkey for a life of leisure can be an abrupt jolt to people accustomed to feeling purposeful, earning money and enjoying their colleagues. From the corporate perspective, it is useful to have experienced hands who can train younger people, pass along institutional wisdom and work with fewer strings attached.

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown