Monday, September 28, 2009

No retirement, just keep working?

That's what a lot of folks are doing, some out of necessity, some because they want to keep working, and some for both reasons:

Workers thriving at 70, 80, and even 100
(CNN) -- Jack Borden would like you to consider working well past retirement age. As a 101-year-old attorney, he has the credibility to encourage it.

Borden, who has been practicing law for the better part of 70 years, still spends about 40 hours a week at his office in Weatherford, Texas, handling estate planning, probate and real estate matters.

Retire? Not while he's able to help folks.

"As long as you are capable, you ought to use what God gave you. He left me here for a reason, and with enough of a mind to do what it is I'm supposed to be doing," said Borden, who also has been a district attorney and Weatherford's mayor.

He arrives at the practice he shares with his nephew at 6:30 a.m. He goes home for lunch at 10:45 a.m., rests in bed for 45 minutes -- doctor's orders after pneumonia a few years back -- returns to work by 12:45 p.m. and stays until at least 4.

Not everyone who works past 65 does so because they want to. In a survey completed last month, 38 percent of respondents working past the age of 62 said they may have to delay retirement even further because of the recession, according to the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project.

But in answer to another question in the same survey, 54 percent of workers 65 or older said they're working now mainly because they want to. Seventeen percent said their main reason was money, and 27 percent said both factors motivated them.

"Some of them enjoy it, and some of them need the money. But even if they need the money, they also enjoy the work," said Cynthia Metzler, president of Experience Works, a nonprofit that helps low-income workers ages 55 and older acquire new job skills. [...]

Read the whole thing, for several examples of people working well past retirement age. Their stories are remarkable, and the photos of the these folks... they look so happy and content. Still very much enjoying their lives and their work.

Not all of them work full-time, but they still put in 20 or 30 hours a week. No small thing for someone in their 70's, 80's or older. I hope I can be as active, productive and enthusiastic when I'm their age.
     

No comments: