Senior Worries

by Anonymous
(USA)

No matter where a person finds himself, he always thinks that the “good life” is just around the corner.

  • In high school, he thinks that college will offer freedom.

  • In college, he thinks that a career will offer money.

  • With a career established, he thinks of retirement.

  • When retirement finally arrives, he thinks of the after life.

    The truth is that wherever one finds himself, life is a challenge. Meeting that challenge and just surviving from one day to the next occupies every senior's day.

    What keeps a retired person busy, you ask; just staying alive is the answer. Staying alive is quite a job. The challenges would be different if for the retirees with good health and adequate financial resources. Seniors with adequate resources compose a small minority.

    Enter a budget food retailer and watch the seniors. They stare at every item. Turn it over in their hands and in their heads. Is it out of date? Will it turn moldy? Am I going to use all of it? These questions have become critical.

    When they had been employed, they could afford to make a mistake; they could afford a little waste. But now there is no room for error. Every purchase must last. There is no extra money. There is no way to replace an item. If the item goes bad, the senior must do without.

    The maintenance of ones health eats up a substantial amount of a senior's time and financial resources. Only a few years ago, the individual visited a medical facility a couple of times a year. Some individuals would not visit a doctor at all in a given year. Now several visits to a medical facility are required every month. Expensive visits. CT's, MRI's, Blood Work, Biopsy's, Nuclear Medicine, Radiation Therapy, and endless and endless visits to an array of doctor's offices.

    Then the seniors worry about the short-sightedness of the younger generation. The generation that they created and raised. The generation that does not see what awaits them. The generation that is as blind to retirement as they were a few years ago.

    A generation that thinks they will be able to work forever; that they will have sufficient financial resources, and good health. A generation that asks the questions that you do. The generation that asks “Tell me what you do to keep busy?”

    The question should be what do you do to stay alive. How greater is the struggle in your final years? That is not the question for seniors, we already know. It is the question that the young must ask for themselves... To prepare themselves for the greatest challenge they will ever face.

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