One day, as I returned from office, I saw my grandfather sitting on his usual spot, i.e. in front of the television, but something seemed unusual. He didn’t seem to be watching the television, but, instead, was lost in some deep thought. His forehead had few deep wrinkles that seemed more defined now, as he sat engrossed in his thoughts. His mouth had some grim expression, and he looked oh so sad. Seeing him like this broke my heart into pieces.

I approached him and sat beside him. I took his hands on mine. It was then, as if he came back to reality with a sudden jerk. He seemed both surprised and pleased to see me. It was clear he hadn’t notice me coming in. He asked me, a little embarrassed, that how long I had been there. I just rubbed his hands in reassurance and lied that I had just entered. He seemed visibly relieved.

We started talking about general stuff while he inquired me about my day and what exciting things did I do during the day. I gave him a detailed overview about my day and faked some challenges that I faced in office and how I resolved them. He seemed pleased.

As he began to come back to his usual self, I took the opportunity and asked him the question that had been lingering on my mind since the moment I entered-”What were you thinking about grandpa? You looked very sad, is something disturbing you?” He considered my question for some time, while his smile vanished. His face turned sad once again. I doubted if he was going to answer my question, but I also knew he loved me and could never say no to me, so I made a puppy face and urged him a little more. Finally his body relaxed a little and he gave out a long sigh. I knew I had my way.

So, this is what he said:

Isn’t this generally the thought when you hear about being retired? Old, sick with nothing left to do. We hardly even prefer spending time with them. We prefer partying over sitting and talking to them.

What we forget is being retired doesn’t really require us to be useless. It actually marks the end of a phase where we have done our duty and life is now giving us the time to enjoy it to the fullest. Now we don’t need to worry about some nasty boss we have to please, appraisals and all the worldly possessions. We are the boss of our lives.

This is the time to fulfil all that we have dreamt for and spend all those hard earned money. Go on trips, eat all that we love and thank the almighty for this day as everyone is not lucky enough to get the opportunity to live a life of retirement.

We should in-fact plan our retirement. You must be wondering what this is even supposed to mean. What I want to say here is that, we should save well for our retirement, make few real friends and exercise every day in order to keep ourselves fit, because this is all that we will require once we are retired. We need money to travel and to fund our daily needs, health to not be dependent on anyone, and friends for company.

On top of all these is will-power - The will-power to live; the will-power to make each day better than the previous; the will-power to never give up no matter how hard life may seem.

We should retire with satisfaction knowing that we have achieved what we deserved. We have worked hard all these years and done our best and now is the time to celebrate.

We always hear people say that building a hobby in life is very important. Have you ever thought about what is its significance? The simple reason is that, having a hobby helps us to look forward to something when we retire. While we are working, it’s difficult to take out enough time to work on our hobby, but once we are retired, we have all the time in the world and engaging our-self in it will make us forget about time itself. Days won’t seem hard to pass as when we do something we love, time flies.

So, retirement doesn’t symbolise the end of life, in-fact it’s the beginning to a life we always wanted to live.