What do you think of when you think of “retirement”? Is it about slowing down, stepping aside, withdrawing into an extended period of leisure? As Dean explains, this typical view of retirement is a historical anomaly, based upon the experience of a single generation in American history: the Greatest Generation. With the increases in life expectancy and economic insecurity, it’s time to rethink what we expect retirement to mean.
Watch:
Glossary
- dummy – (informal) a stupid or silly person
- life expectancy – the average period that a person may expect to live
- to creep (above) –
- to undermine –
- unencumbered – not having any burden or impediment
- empty nester – a parent whose children have grown and moved away from home
- to emulate – to imitate sb because you admire them a great deal
- blunder – a gross, stupid, or careless mistake
Answer the questions:
1. What did ”Nick” do at the age of 98?
2. What does the Japanese word ”Ikigai” stand for?
3. What did the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of Prussia do in 1883?
4. What does the speaker mean by saying the Chancellow was no ”dummy”?
5. Who does the Greatest Generation refer to?
6. Why isnt the group of people over the age of 60 homogenous, according to the speaker?
7. What do Rose and Dean (the speaker) have in common?
8. What examples of a social blunder does the speaker give?
9. What does the speaker mean by redefining retirement?
Practice Makes Perfect
WORD FORMATION: Change the word in CAPITALS to fill in the blanks.
Happiness During Teen Years Predicts Happiness as Adults
Outgoing and 1. (EMOTION) ………. stable young adults tend to have happier times in retirement than those who lived introverted or emotionally fraught young adult lives. That’s the finding of an analysis of more than 4,500 people in the Journal of Research in Personality.
Investigators conducted two earlier personality surveys. 2. [PARTICIPATE] ………… were 16 years old when they were initially surveyed and 26 years old for the followup. They were asked questions about their 3. [SOCIAL] ……….. , energy, emotional stability, mood, and 4. [DISTRACT] ……….. . The researchers calculated scores of extraversion and 5. [NEUROTIC] ………….. for every participant.
Then, nearly four decades later, more than 2,500 of the participants completed questions about their well-being and 6. [SATISFY] ………… with life, and their physical health.
Greater extroversion in young 7. [ADULT] ……….. directly correlated with greater satisfaction later in life. On the negative side researchers found that higher levels of neuroticism during the teen and young adult years was associated with a greater susceptibility toward 8. [ANXIOUS] ……….. and depression in people’s 60s. (Remember, that’s a tendency, not a 9. [CERTAIN] ………… .)
The researchers point out that trying to find criteria for life-long happiness is more than an academic exercise: Happy people tend to live longer, so figuring out what makes for happiness could lead to adding precious, happy years.
—Christie Nicholson
Read or Listen to check your answers: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/60-second-mind/happiness-during-teen-years-predict-13-07-22/
Key: 1. emotionally; 2. participants; 3. sociability; 4. distractibility; 5. neuroticism; 6. satisfaction; 7. adulthood; 8. Ankiety; 9. certainty
Discuss
- What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘retirement’?
- What do you think you’ll do more of when you retire?
- What’s the best age to retire?
- Does retirement scare you in any way?
- Are you putting money away for your retirement?
- “Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it.” (Gene Perret) Would you agree?
Explore it more to create your own teaching-learning experience!
Retirement the Margaritaville Way
At the active-living community for Jimmy Buffett enthusiasts, it’s five o’clock everywhere.
Read:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/retirement-the-margaritaville-way
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