In case you missed it, there was an interesting article in the February 16, 2010 issue of U.S. News & World Report by Emily Brandon, entitled “10 Ways Baby Boomers will Reinvent Retirement.” It is a good article, and I hope you will read it, as well as some of the related articles to which the article includes internal links. There are some helpful insights and references to how we will cope with our very different needs.

This article is largely focused on the ways the Baby Boomer generation will “Re-invent retirement.” In most cases, we will have no choice but to re-invent retirement in the ways noted. These re-inventions of retirement all have more to do with how boomers will adapt to a different environment than that into which our parents retired. So necessity will be the mother of most of these reinventions, such as having no pension plans, needing to manage our money and investments, coping with being the “sandwich generation,” receiving less in social security support, and being in debt when we retire.

While these “re-inventions” will certainly be facts of life for Baby Boomers as we grow older, I think the tone of the article fails to recognize some very important characteristics of this generation.

First, boomers are the wealthiest generation in history.

Second, receiving less money from social security depends upon the age at retirement. If we work until age 70 or 72 (which the vast majority of us say we plan to do), we will receive more money.

Third, needing to work two extra years to recover what our retirement accounts lost in the recent economic crisis is, again, not a problem, because we don’t want to stop working at age 65.

Finally, the Boomer generation is not just defined by our financial situation. We will respond to the necessities we are faced with, and we will respond in ways that are both effective and that make us happy.

Boomers are a generation that has been learning how to respond when life hands us lemons. We have learned how to make spectacular lemonade!

I would like to hear from you. Tell me what you think.

Are you sitting in a chair with a handful or lemons? Or are you making lemonade?

If you are making lemonade, what recipe are you using?

“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” — Henry James

Good news, Baby Boomers – you don’t need to give up your flip-flops! We grew up with these inexpensive, easy-on, easy-off “shoes” and millions of us still love them. Most of us were told by our parents, doctors and “science” that anything that flimsy and cheap could not possibly be good for us.

I’ve been told they are bad for my feet, bad for my legs, etc. As we grow older, many of us are developing osteoarthritis in our knees (and, perhaps, in a few other joints, as well). Some of us have been told to wear all kinds of shoes to reduce the pain in our knees.

Here’s the good news:
Researchers at Rush University in Chicago studies some adults with osteoarthritis and found that the flexibility of flip-flops are good for our knees, as is walking barefoot (which many of us also enjoy) or wearing flat walking shoes. Click here to read the whole article in the Los Angeles Times. The article also has links to the study, the abstract of the study and to the Arthritis Foundation. Then start thinking about comfort, and flop on!

Share your flip-flop stories.

There is a danger in the avid pursuit of one’s dreams – selfishness, self-absorption, self-centeredness. The way to avoid this danger is to always stop to live each day and cherish each friend or family member.

When we value each person for their dreams and hopes and struggles and pain, we deny selfishness a point of entry into our hearts and lives. As important as it is to pursue our dreams, we must remember that the dreams of others are equally important.

There is no comparing of dreams. What might seem grand to you might seem a small dream to another, and vice versa. Never compare dreams. Instead seek out ways to help one another in successfully fulfilling their dreams.

“Perfect good breeding is the result of nature and not of education; for it may be found in a cottage, and may be missed in a palace. ‘Tis the genial regard for the feeling of others that spring from an absence of selfishness.”           — Disraeli

You cannot make progress toward your goals until you take the first step.

The New Year brings to each of us the challenge to just BEGIN. No matter how large or how small your goals and plans, you will not achieve them until you BEGIN.

Gather your support group, gather your resources, gather your courage, and BEGIN. Trust your dream, trust your plans, and BEGIN.

Whether your initial steps are large or small, the first steps must be taken. Only you can take the first steps toward fulfillment of your dream. It will be a great and worthy task, but you must BEGIN.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute
What you can do, or dream you can; begin it;
Boldness has genius, power magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin and then the work will be completed.
            — Goethe

There are always so many things to do. There is work, kids, spouse, grandchildren, friends, housework, and yard work. In January there are winter challenges and tasks – shoveling snow, scraping ice, bringing in firewood, building fires and more.
 
January is also when we start thinking about taxes and about planning for the New Year and honoring resolutions.  If the planning was already done, it is time to begin to put the plans into action.
 
In January there is so much to do. It is so very easy to become overwhelmed by all the things before us. It is also very easy to become so busy doing things that we forget to simply enjoy living.
 
Give yourself time to live, time to laugh, time to play and time to work. Try to keep it all in balance. If balance becomes elusive, give me a call – I can help you put it all back into perspective (203-855-9714).
 
“Prepare to live by all means, but for heaven’s sake do not forget to live. You will never have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you will have, but you are mistaken.”      — Arnold Bennett

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”
– Pamela Vaull Starr

Whether you call them dreams, goals, aspirations or something else, make them big; make them profound; make them worth your best effort. Let them draw you out of your past, away from your fears, and beyond any failures of the past.

Allow your dreams to become big enough to define your goals for every year and even for every day of the rest of your life. Establish for your life a roadmap to your dream, mapping daily steps to accomplishment of the whole. Then pursue the goal of each day with all your heart and all your joy.

Moving ever closer to your dream will warm your heart, will embrace the support and the involvement of others, and will light a fire that will inspire those around you to share both the trials of the journey and the celebration of success.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster www.drcynthiabarnett.com

“First, say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
 – Epictetus, Discourses

Who do your dreams call you to become? How will fulfilling your dreams transform you? If fulfilling a dream will not make you better or stronger is it worth pursuing?

I am convinced that as we reach the second phase of our lives and we are given the gift of a chance to pursue our dreams, we owe it to ourselves to pursue only worthy dreams. The others are probably best left in the memory of the years of our immaturity.

The dreams that remain, the dreams that draw us forward, should be worthy of the experience, the wisdom and the skill acquired over half a lifetime. Worthy dreams demand of us new growth and new passion for life. When you have discovered that dream hiding somewhere deep in your soul, it will demand all that you have to give and in return it will give you a more fulfilling and happy life.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Throughout our lives we dream of a future we would like to design. From childhood dreams of a world filled with lollipops and cotton candy, available to us every moment, our dreams change to what life would be “if only.”  In time, our dreams mature apace with our lives and we dream of a future more beautiful, more compelling and more perfect than the reality of life at the moment.

The true beauty of a dream is its power to transform the present into a future that is better in some meaningful way. A dream might promise something better only for the dreamer or it might aspire to something greater for society. Often what begins as the former will find fulfillment as the latter.

One of the most magical things about dreams pursued is the power of the pursuit to transform the dream itself and make it something more worthy of pursuit and more beautiful to all who are touched by its achievement.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
– Victor Hugo

Human history glows with the truth of Hugo’s words. Human civilization has progressed through every age because courageous people dared to dream a better future and then dared to make it true. If you doubt it, pick up any novel by Victor Hugo and read the beautiful and transformative stories of those who dreamed and whose dreams shaped the future.

It makes no difference how big a dream might be. Every dream has the power to evoke our greatest strength, our most compelling determination, and our most luminous success. Only those who dream will ever know how big the dream or what effort was required to make it real. But a dream fulfilled will stand alone as a measure of achievement and, hopefully, as a measure of lives improved.

No matter how expansive or how personal you believe your dream to be, it is the sharing of it and the achievement of it that will reveal its true power to create a better future.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

Enjoy a Break

Time passes by so quickly, as though digital timekeeping has sped up the Earth’s rotation. Our routine is set at exact times. Things get done like clockwork. And we are slaves to our routine, from the moment we wake up to the time we close our eyes.

There’s nothing natural about our daily grind. It’s a monotony that’s quite out of sync with the beauty that surrounds us but which we ignore. We’re simply doing things for reasons that appeal to the vanity of our species. Maybe it’s time to reconnect with the childhood joys you’ve forgotten.

You don’t have to leave everything behind, of course. Take it easy and gradually reinvent your way of seeing things. You need to focus on the little details that bring out the whole picture, like examining each amazing fractal in the Julia Set, each constellation in the night sky, or, closer to home, each dear photograph in the album you’ve kept.

Focus is what we all need, but it doesn’t always have to do with work. Giving yourself a little time in the middle of a busy day won’t hurt. It revitalizes your senses, in fact. A one-minute introspective focus on the beauty of your surrounding at lunch break may change the way you appreciate life in the long run.

It can be your one minute of simplification, of self-discovery through the appreciation of little things around you: the way the flowers are arranged, the combination of their colors; how light is reflected by the leaves of grass and trees and the river; the flutter of pigeons at the park; someone whistling a happy tune; an old couple holding hands.

Let it be an unhurried, un-harried, unspoiled one-minute habit of seeing things in a blissful light. It’s a treat not just for your senses but the soul as well. And through it you may understand yourself better.

It’s a good start to realize that life can be even more beautiful if we could spend some time to enjoy it. Not the high life but a simple one, which carries no price tag, as the best things in life, a poet declared, can’t be had with a swipe of your plastic.