Top Ten Reasons to Retire by Sandra

1. Because you are eligible to retire (or, bluntly - because you CAN) -and meet the age requirement (at my company it was rule of 75, minimum age 55 plus years of employment--I was up top something like rule of 85) -and can enroll for social security benefits. That and a pension made it doable.

2. In my case it was partly due to medical factors--and the company seemed to be losing patience with my inability to 'keep up' anymore...actually, they increased my work load when one of my bosses resigned. I just couldn't sit in front of a computer for 8 or 9 hours a day anymore. It was becoming depressing.

3. I had a sister in Tennessee who was battling breast cancer - and retiring enabled me to go spend a month there, twice a year, to be with her and do whatever I could. I couldnt have done that if I had still been working.

4. Because there is so much more to life to enjoy than spending most of your time in an office building. It was time to smell the roses (and work in the garden, cook in my kitchen - play with my grandchildren).

5. Because I wanted to be able to spend more time writing - not business letters, but letters to my friends, things for ITN--poetry, anything. Just to have the TIME to do these things (even if I don't always do as much as I would like...but here I am on a Friday morning writing THIS instead of someone's preauthorization for surgery!)

6. I mentioned playing with my grandchildren in #4 but would like to elaborate a little - I want to be the kind of grandmother MY grandma was; I want to be able to spend time with the children, take them places, do things with them. This past summer I took my oldest granddaughter with me to Sioux Falls SD to visit one of my sons and his wife. She also spent a week with us before Christmas and will probably spend another week with us during spring break. Whenever she or her brother gets sick, I can pack up and go to their house to run things so their parents can go to work everyday (couldnt do THAT before!) - and they have needed me quite a few times. It's such a blessing to just be ABLE to do that--free to go!)

7. I don't have to do battle with rush hour commuter traffic anymore - in fact, I schedule all my doctor appointments around non-rush hour periods just to avoid it. When for some unplanned reason I find myself bogged in rush hour traffic I say "it all comes back to me now".

8. You don't have to punch a time clock anymore (I still have nightmares about this - I will be dreaming that I forgot to punch in on the time clock - how weird is THAT?)

9. You can go more places, do more things, without ever thinking oh, we can't do that because I have to get up early on Monday morning. Every day is a weekend! yeah!

10. Repeat #1. Because you CAN. Life is too short. Don't waste any of it.