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This past few weeks, I've been doing a series of messages on happiness among attendees of my weekly hospital life recovery group. Since quite a number of patients in this hospital are aged or retirees, I tried to zero in on issues affecting this particular age group (though am not a member of it yet!). My senior co-worker, Dr. Nap, is soon to retire and it's sort of relevant what we're taking up during our meetings.
I have this to say to my friends in the life recovery group: Never make the mistake of planning for retirement! Here's my context - 75% of retirees die within two years of their retirement. That's what research says, horrid though the finding may be. I think the cause for this is the idea that when you "retire" from work or employment, it's as if you also retire from life. Inactive retirement is slow suicide and contraindicated in anyone with heart beats and brain waves!
Of course, if you're a retiree and having health conditions, you can cut down. You can ease off. But never quit altogether. Keep your body and brain working or they begin to atrophy. Engage in something you love. If you're no longer passionate about something, then retire from it and move to another dream. Just don't retire from life itself. Stay active.
When I reach my own senior years, I still intend to run. Run for life!
Dr. Angelo Subida is a clinical psychotherapist, author, and speaker. He is author of books "Inner Healing," "Secrets Of Your Self," "Chess and Life," among others, blogs, and articles. He has appeared frequently as an expert on psychotherapy/life recovery issues on national television, radio broadcasts, print media, and webcasts, including GMA 7, TV 5, ABS CBN 2, Q-11, 700 Club, Radyo Veritas, Inquirer Radio, Smart Parenting Magazine, Business Mirror, among others, and has served as resident therapist/counselor for parents and kid-artists in the highly popular ABS-CBN 2 Voice Kids TV singing reality show. Dr. Subida is an eclectic, multidisciplinary therapist and originator of his own revolutionary high-tech, high-touch counseling plus model. His areas of specialization include parent-child therapy, clinical infidelity treatment, relationship/marital counseling, separation/divorce therapy, anger management, depression, addictions, psychotherapy-spirituality integration, and innovative chess therapy. For more of Dr. Subida, you can find him at www.drsubida.com.