If you are fortunate to live long enough, you sign up for social security payments. That happened to me recently.
You don’t think your time will come, but it does. It’s strange.
If you haven’t reached this stage of life, you too will go through a number of logistical and emotional issues when you choose to start receiving your earned benefits. If you’ve already reached the age to receive your social security benefits, perhaps the rest of this column will resonate with you.
One of the first steps is actually saying to yourself, “I will set up my social security payments.” You have the option to wait as long as you want, or start getting your money deposited to your account before your expected date of full benefits. It’s a choice. You have to make a decision.
That makes you think about your age, the aging process, how long you will live. Hmmmmmmm….. You don’t sit down often and go through those considerations in your head.
You face your mortality. You look inside yourself and think things like, “How healthy am I? Will I live six more years or 26 more years?” You don’t know the answers to these questions, which makes the process mentally difficult.
It also gives you angst. You squirm. You want to think life goes on and on, even though your logical mind tells you (when you choose to focus on this, which you don’t do often) says it won’t. There will be a date where you pass, and you then must say to yourself, “Does it make sense for me to receive my benefits sooner rather than later.”
Then, you must also look into the issue of continuing to earn money by other means. Do you need extra cash beyond your SSN payments? Yes, you do. So, how will you earn this? Do you have a pension? Do you have other savings? Do you plan to work at some part-time or full-time job? If so, how many hours will you put in, and how many years do you plan to do so?
Those are a lot of hard questions which force you to consider your desires, what you’re good at, and your projected health. And you must look into the future at your health to determine what “could” you work at (read: be physically able) and how many hours could you realistically put in.
All this doesn’t even address the issue of what you might want to do with additional spare time as you’re considering easing your way out of full-time employment and moving into what often gets described as “retirement,” which isn’t really an accurate description. It’s highly unlikely that the majority of people retire. Most continue to work, albeit at something less demanding than when they put in the hours at a full-time position.
How will you stay busy? What engages you? Is there some craft you’ve waited to take up, and now’s the time to do it? What types of activities give you the most joy?
These are the fun questions to ponder, the ones that make the process enjoyable as you move forward in the years ahead. There’s a balance to all this. I haven’t found it. Perhaps we never do. That’s okay. That seems to be part of life in general – figuring out what’s next, making good decisions, finding balance and some things that you look forward to in the years ahead.
You don’t think your time will come, but it does. It’s strange.
If you haven’t reached this stage of life, you too will go through a number of logistical and emotional issues when you choose to start receiving your earned benefits. If you’ve already reached the age to receive your social security benefits, perhaps the rest of this column will resonate with you.
One of the first steps is actually saying to yourself, “I will set up my social security payments.” You have the option to wait as long as you want, or start getting your money deposited to your account before your expected date of full benefits. It’s a choice. You have to make a decision.
That makes you think about your age, the aging process, how long you will live. Hmmmmmmm….. You don’t sit down often and go through those considerations in your head.
You face your mortality. You look inside yourself and think things like, “How healthy am I? Will I live six more years or 26 more years?” You don’t know the answers to these questions, which makes the process mentally difficult.
It also gives you angst. You squirm. You want to think life goes on and on, even though your logical mind tells you (when you choose to focus on this, which you don’t do often) says it won’t. There will be a date where you pass, and you then must say to yourself, “Does it make sense for me to receive my benefits sooner rather than later.”
Then, you must also look into the issue of continuing to earn money by other means. Do you need extra cash beyond your SSN payments? Yes, you do. So, how will you earn this? Do you have a pension? Do you have other savings? Do you plan to work at some part-time or full-time job? If so, how many hours will you put in, and how many years do you plan to do so?
Those are a lot of hard questions which force you to consider your desires, what you’re good at, and your projected health. And you must look into the future at your health to determine what “could” you work at (read: be physically able) and how many hours could you realistically put in.
All this doesn’t even address the issue of what you might want to do with additional spare time as you’re considering easing your way out of full-time employment and moving into what often gets described as “retirement,” which isn’t really an accurate description. It’s highly unlikely that the majority of people retire. Most continue to work, albeit at something less demanding than when they put in the hours at a full-time position.
How will you stay busy? What engages you? Is there some craft you’ve waited to take up, and now’s the time to do it? What types of activities give you the most joy?
These are the fun questions to ponder, the ones that make the process enjoyable as you move forward in the years ahead. There’s a balance to all this. I haven’t found it. Perhaps we never do. That’s okay. That seems to be part of life in general – figuring out what’s next, making good decisions, finding balance and some things that you look forward to in the years ahead.