Remember those who held the telescope when you were looking at the stars

Continuation and discontinuation from work offers different kinds of pleasures. What is so sacrosanct about 60 and 65, as an age for retirement? If you are healthy and have a reasonably functional mind, should you retire? Why one gets tired of work after attaining a certain age, or even before that? Working longer means increased monetary benefits, and at the same time, increased fatigue, if the work is taxing. If the time one spends doing the work is worth the time, then there are no qualms. On the other hand, few extra hours of sleep are often more relaxing than a few lakhs of rupees.
Our trade offs decide when to retire. Our emotions decide our continuation or othetwise, to work. Our biases decide our emotions. Our experiences impact our biases. The results of a research suggests that losses hurt more than equivalent gains. Whom to blame when one is dissatisfied with work, yet continues to work? Why to remain unhappy, when you can be happy?

Our ‘affective forecasting’ is important in our decision making process. Our ‘anticipated emotions’ guide us to take decisions. Our happiness set points largely predict our affective forecasting. One should be careful about one’s exaggerated expectations. Many a times, we think what we could not do so far, now could be done. We often think, once we are out of the vagaries of a job, we will be able to make a big dent in our chosen activity. This is not always true. Optimum optimism helps when we move in unknown destinations. Often there are big holes between the past and the future. Often we tend to neglect ‘minor’ details. With time, some minor details don’t remain minor. We have to understand that our retired phase is not a momentary moment of one or two years. It is a misconception that we will have abundance of free time when we are out of work. Our mind decides if we have free time to do what we want to do.
When one is old, wounds take longer time to heal. But that doesn’t mean that you stop doing all the pleasures of life because you are becoming old. Eat carefully, but not so carefully that you loose appetite for pleasure.
Your purpose is to serve the purpose of the universe. Don’t underestimate or overestimate your universe. And, always remember those who held the telescope for you when you were looking at the stars.