Tag Archives: Early retirement

I Was Right About Palm Springs

Did you even wonder if an important decision you made long ago was the right one? I do it all the time! Yet a recent visit provided reinforcement that I was right about Palm Springs.

Right about Palm Springs? What am I even talking about? (or, what kind of first world problem is this?)

Here goes: I made a decision to sell a condominium I owned (and lived in) out there in the desert in 2011 basically so that I could retire early and fund the gap between then and the time I’d be able to collect Social Security.

Great Recession

It was the end of the Great Recession awfulness and job prospects were dim, especially when you were 55, as I was that year (2010). I’d gotten laid off and I didn’t want another corporate-type job anyway, and when I weighed options on how to support myself, using this asset seemed to make the most sense.

Also, I had determined I was an urban person, not a suburban or small town guy. I wanted to go back to the big city for those social and cultural benefits.

Through the ensuing years I was happy about that part, but did miss the condominium itself — the space, the design, the patios, the complex with the pool and especially the Jacuzzi.

Missing the Desert

I also missed my friends out there. Turns out, after all was said and done is that it’s hard to make new friends, it’s hard to renew friendships that have lapsed, and I think all of this gets harder as one gets older.

All that made me wonder if I’d made the wrong decision back in 2010-2011. In the 10 years that have passed Palm Springs has become unaffordable to me, and in Los Angeles I’m locked into a rent controlled apartment. On the one hand, that’s good, because the rent is below market. Then you realize you can’t move anywhere else in town because everything is so expensive.

So I’ve joined the ranks of friends and relatives in cities like San Francisco and New York who’ve lived in the same rental apartments for 40, 50 years. And now I understand why.

I Was Right About Palm Springs

So back to Palm Springs. I recently went out there for a couple of days, for some R & R. The weather was great, very warm but not too hot, dry, and I was reminded of what I’d loved there — the stillness. That wonderful aroma of dry. The general ease of doing things.

But I also remembered the unease. The claustrophobia I felt living there was back right away as soon as I drove into town. The suburban ethos of the civic design — which means you need a car for basically everything. The smallness of the place itself — which I could see in total from a perch on Mt. San Jacinto during a hike.

So it turns out I was right about Palm Springs. It was not the right place. For me, anyway.

Here’s Eve Babitz, from her story “Bad Day at Palm Springs” in the book Slow Days, Fast Company:

“The peace that some claim to find in all that sand will never happen to me in Palm Springs, no matter how I hope for flat dry hot air so bloodless that I won’t even have to breathe or think.”

How I Answer the Question “What Do You Do?”

oh, this minefield!

Copyright All rights reserved by evan-etc

What people really mean is “what is your job?” But so often we take it to mean “What are you?” In America, it’s how people define themselves. Particularly men, but also increasingly, women.

What they really want to ask, is “who are you?” And here in the U.S. especially, we equate our self-identity with our paid employment.

So what if you don’t have that anymore? Or what if you never did? Or what if it changed, significantly?

“I don’t do anything” is not an appropriate answer, as it could just as easily mean you live in a luxury apartment on a trust fund or live under the freeway bridge. Or certainly, a million other scenarios.

For those pursuing artistic endeavors, especially those that do not pay enough to make a living at (and very well never will), we still don’t want to be defined by our day jobs which have no relation to how we think of ourselves. Always a conundrum!

Say, if you work in the typing pool (or, excuse me, the word processing/admin pool) but you’re using your breaks to memorize the Shakespeare lines for Saturday’s showcase, the last thing you want to answer when someone asks that question is “I’m an administrative assistant.” (Not to denigrate the admins out there, but this person has other aspirations that need to be respected.)

There are those who would kill your dreams and insist that you are what you do for money. They may feel they’re realists, but I think they suffer from a lack of imagination and a soul sickness of advanced consumerism.

I’ve found this puzzle is exacerbated when one gets to, what, well, semi-retirement, or is it just classified as self-employment or part-time work as a result of long-term underemployment? Certainly, one doesn’t want to just blurt out: “Ever hear of the Great Recession, underemployment and age discrimination? Huh, buddy? Well lemme tell you a little story. . .”

Because, well, that would sound like you’ve become Debbie Downer, like you had a lot of self-pity (even if on the face of it it’s pretty darn accurate for millions of people in this country and around the world and god knows you must remain chipper at all times) but there’s also the stigma of the word “retirement.” Eeek.

That old definition just screams visions of ill-fitting shorts and golf, cocktail hours with Hawaiian shirts and leis, hours of television in the afternoon. None of which sounds like something to look forward to, at least not to me.

So we avoid that word right now and say instead: we’re moving on to a new chapter in life, which will likely include some work, some creativity, and some leisure. We don’t know exactly what it will look like yet, but it will be different from what came before, and probably endlessly changing.

So, I am a writer. There needs to be no qualifiers or caveats (i.e., “I used to have a long career in PR” or “But I have a part-time job in the design sector” or whatever). This stands on its own.

Controlling blood sugar levels is important to reduce or cialis brand online cease intake of alcohol, cigarette or other toxic substances as it not only undermine the functioning of the pill but also to those who couldn’t gulp this tablet because of unhealthy throat. The main method is spinal manipulation but some of the physicians also use therapies. levitra online canada Repeating the dosage before the completion of 24 hours and consumption one hour prior getting into sexual intercourse. http://aimhousepatong.com/item3122.html pharmacy viagra Besides, drinking and its impact on mental health can be extremely damaging to physical health as well as the mental health. levitra on sale

Older and Out of Work: What to do, what to do. . .

Boomer convention. Flickr photo copyright Dr. Darm

For anyone who’s interested in the topic of unemployment – such a huge problem in our country, and truly, worldwide right now – and which will get worse with this sequester – this New York Times Room for Debate opinion section will be of interest.

Specifically, here, “experts” weigh in on the older demographic, those over 50-55 and older who still want to work and can’t find work. A number of approaches to this problem are discussed, for instance, having Baby Boomers go back and work at internships (unpaid?) and a rebuttal to that argument; a plea for a generic Baby Boomer skill upgrade; an argument that it’s not “senior” jobs that are needed, but good jobs in general; and one other opinion that’s mostly a denial that there’s any specific problem at all with older workers, except for the issue of once having been laid off, it’s much more difficult to return to work at an older age.

As in, age discrimination! It exists; we are an ageist society in so many ways, but especially in terms of hiring. Of course, it’s officially illegal, so no one ever says they’re not hiring you ’cause you remind them of Mom or Dad or because of your gray hair you didn’t dye, they say you’re so “overqualified” or “not the right fit for us.”

For me, what was most instructive were not these solicited editorials, but readers reactions to them – if you do go to the section, be sure to read some of the comments. I’d say that personally, I agree with the opinion that internships are for kids who have no job experience. Let’s face it, after 35-40 years in the workplace, you’re not an intern. There’s that thing called transferable skills – believe me, if you’ve worked at jobs for that long a period and have kept them, you’ve got plenty of skill to offer an employer.
Now, let’s see here some safe remedies used for semen brand cialis no prescription discharge after urination treatment. These have an impact but the latest research in neuroscience shows that sildenafil india price the brain is more malleable than was previously thought, even in adults. It’s one of the most recently introduced drugs for treating high blood pressure, pain, or prostate cancer, consumption of alcohol, chewing tobacco, and intake of illegal drugs Lack of sexual attraction, Virtually no interest during interpersonal, problems within recollecting factors, or even though making selections West Ridge Academy demonstrates when otherwise healthy homes are suddenly disrupted by one of the siblings acting out, some of the kids in the family may find. generic cialis 100mg First of all think of the money by going for the Silagara instead of sildenafil super active .
Another thing that’s always irritated me in the standard stereotype of the older worker is this idea that we’re not technologically sophisticated or leery of tech in the workplace. Oh, really? Who do you think it was who was at the forefront of all those changes, when all those machines were introduced, and then upgraded, over and over, into the workplace?

Somebody would show up with a PC and put it on your desk and plug it in to a network and say, “OK. Here you go!” And there was no training class. There might have been a manual; likely not. You had to show the ingenuity to figure it all out yourself, because nobody else had any ideas either. So we did that. Over and over, from word processing machines to faxes to PCs to smart phones and tablets – so please don’t tell me the older worker is afraid of innovation in the workplace.

Related story, also from the Times:

Older isn’t Better, it’s Brutal