What are you gonna do . . . we all get older. This serving of the Best of
Baby Boomer blogs offers a generous helping of advice about how to cope with the
perils and pitfalls of aging -- and the opportunities that go with them.
Aging can be a bummer (do you have trouble driving at night?), but Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting prefers to concentrate on the positive aspects of life at a mature age, such as being able to go on vacation whenever you want. Check out her post A Retiree’s Life to get all the details -- which (if I'm interpreting her correctly) allows us to eat all the chocolate cake we want, whenever we want.
Aging can be a bummer (do you have trouble driving at night?), but Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting prefers to concentrate on the positive aspects of life at a mature age, such as being able to go on vacation whenever you want. Check out her post A Retiree’s Life to get all the details -- which (if I'm interpreting her correctly) allows us to eat all the chocolate cake we want, whenever we want.
Could that possibly be right?
On a more realistic note, record numbers of Baby Boomers are
retiring, and Rita R. Robison, blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, realizes that many Boomers are business owners who plan to cash out and use the proceeds to fund their retirement. But she says: Not so fast! More than 80 percent of business owners have no formal transition plan, and, in the end, only about 25 percent of businesses up for sale actually do sell.
Those odds are likely to become worse as millions of Baby Boomers attempt to sell their businesses over the next decade in what she terms an "exit bubble." Combine the lack of readiness with the historically low success rate for selling a business, and you could be looking at a perfect storm for business owners. So in an attempt to help them out, she enlisted guest author Tensie Homan, a CPA, to offer Five Tips for Selling Your Business.
Next we move on to smaller, more compact matters. According to Amy Blitchok at Modern Senior
the recent release of AARP’s tablet, the RealPad, was a bit of a bust.
So in her post Great Deals on Tablets for Seniors she offers some recommendations for the best affordable tablets that are perfect for seniors -- and people of any age or skill level -- who want to use a tablet to communicate with
their families, share photos and check email.
Laura Lee, aka the Midlife Crisis Queen, poses more philosophical questions. First of all, in How We Boomers Have Changed with Our Culture and the Music, she contrasts the "pathetically optimistic" tunes of our childhood with the grittier lyrics of more recent times, and wonders if our taste in music has evolved with our worldly wisdom.
Then (to add insult to injury), she recently walked into a restaurant. The server immediately assumed she was there for the Senior Special, which left a bad taste in her mouth, and made her ponder Do I Really Look Like a Senior Now?
Finally, on a more serious note, Kathy, at Smart Living, reveals that she is a former smoker in Why I'm a Grateful Quitter. "No I won’t pretend it was ever smart or healthy," she says, "but back when I was a smoker we didn’t think much about it." Yet she admits that every time she coughed she suspected there would be a price to pay.
Kathy quit over 25 years ago. But her mom wasn't as lucky, and she paid for it with her life. That’s why today Kathy is a strong supporter of the Great American Smokeout and its theme “Quit Together. Win Together.” The smokeout event occurs every year on the third Thursday of November, which this year falls on November 20. As Kathy concludes, "I don’t regret much in my life but I do regret not being able to help my mother quit so we could both have won against this addiction together."
10 comments:
Wonderfully full of links to blogs related to retirement.
Speaking of smoking..don't all these folks pushing to legalize marijuana realize they will have to deal with another kind of smoke?
I love how we're all linked in some way, virtually or elsewise.
I looked at the link about tablets for seniors, and I have to say I am really glad I bought that iPad Ar. It's wonderful for streaming and watching videos. And all the other stuff, too. :-)
Great blogs to help navigate the jerky waters of senior living. Unfortunately, my own blog has little of practical value to offer.
It's a great age and great to be retired!
Hi Tom....thank you for including a link to my article about quitting smoking in this post :-) It was a REALLY important one to me and I sincerely hope more people get the message. Perhaps those who never watched a love one die from it won't have the same perspective, but if we have...then we know how much we regret it.... ~Kathy
Good timing, Tom. I was sent an AARP RealPad to evaluate and review. I am glad to have the chance to read Amy Blitchok's thought on her blog about the tablet.
So far, I have mixed feelings, too, but will have my wife, who doesn't use a tablet, see what she thinks before I write my post.
All very good blogs. Thank you for sharing Tom.
I'd like to comment on the last couple of paragraphs. You cannot make someone quit smoking. In fact, I am reasonably sure you cannot even help them do so. I believe that people must have a reason to quit and that this reason is relatively unique to that person. The best thing you can do for a quitter is to tolerate the phases they go though.
One other thought: Growing old is not for wimps.
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