As we saw in the previous post, none of us knows what the future holds or how long we’ve got, but we can expect to face some challenges. However, we CAN prepare for these things if we do some planning in advance.
It’s probably too much to hope for to retire, have a perfect 25 or 30-year retirement, and then pass away quietly in our sleep. Chances are there are going to be things thrown at us by the Fates which we’ll need to deal with.
That could be illness – that’s certainly the biggest concern of any of my clients that are retired. No-one wants to get ill, but there’s a good chance we’ll battle some kind of serious illness as we get older. And it might not be your ill-health but someone else’s, like an elderly parent, that impacts on your life.
Maybe it’ll be relationship challenges. Divorce in retirement is increasingly common and obviously causes massive financial upheaval apart from everything else that comes with it. Or it might be relationship changes for your kids or family members, which you might have to get involved with financially or otherwise.
External things like global pandemics, massive recessions, stock market crashes, political upheaval – all of these things can impact your life directly or indirectly. One thing is certain: life is uncertain. But despite that…
Planning is Still Important
There’s no logic in throwing your hands up and singing ‘que sera sera’ and just winging it through life. We should still make plans, even if we know they’ll have to adapt to the changeability of life.
We’ll all have things we want to achieve, places we want to travel to, things we want to see and do, and we should plan to do them all, while reconciling ourselves to the fact that we might not get the chance if life decides otherwise.
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