You see them after travelling peak hours in the UK, every weekday, shuffling on the buses with their free passes, in some places trying to get on the bus before off peak time. You see them once or twice a week queued up outside post offices and if you happen into a pub (bar), they are there, nursing a pint of something for hours sometimes playing cards or dominos or choosing horses or greyhounds from some broadsheet newspaper and sending the 'bookie' runabout to place a bet for them. You might also spot them in the local butcher or at the Wednesday market buying two sausages for 'tea'. My wife will tell you that nothing frightens her husband more that joining the ranks of the 'one foot in the grave' brigade.

If anything should motivate you to aim to do something with your life it should be these poor souls who appear to be waiting for nothing but God. Oh, they do look forward to some things like if lucky enough, to the grandchildren coming round once in a while, the Christmas family meal and the once a year trip to the seaside but the rest of their life appears to be waiting….. I do suppose that the middle class and upper class old folks have a somewhat different experience but stories like this and this do not convince me that retiring is an acceptable option. And yes, I do not believe those smarmy pension salespeople trying convince me that it will be different for me, you only have to look around to see what is happening to the pension schemes. Even the UK Government is not averse to screwing a pensioner or thousand or so (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8568970.stm). Pensions are the worst investment you can make in my opinion and it is a disgrace that we are nearly always forced to contribute.

To not want to retire means you have to be doing something you love, otherwise you will get tired and old. I just want to keep going until I keel over, hopefully in my sleep surrounded by those I love. Whether they love me or not at that time, I suspect, will not be not very important. If however, by some cruel twist of fate, I get to be unable to live a reasonably independent life to the age of say 85, wash myself, dress myself, wipe my own behind and enjoy a hard-on, then my family should, by now, be under no illusion as to what I expect of them. (On this note, some additional reading about the matter.)

I suppose this mentality means that I can contemplate the uncomfortable options that are ahead. They are not as scary as the alternative of staying where I am, keeping my head down and hoping that my current comfortable situation continues for the foreseeable future and maybe through retirement.

If there is a God, he is going to have to send something to drag me kicking and screaming from this world, because I will not waiting for Him. What about you? Do you want to spend the last few years of your life with one foot in the grave?

May you find the balance.

[First published on my Talking2Myself blog on specified date]