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Discovering the Golden Years |
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This is the first sunrise of the New Millennium.
Gulliver and the LilliputiansWhen you retire you have to be very careful. You will be like
Gulliver in the Land of the Lilliputians. The Lilliputians were very small
about the size of one of Gulliver’s fingers, naturally Gulliver didn’t take
them seriously because they were so small. He felt safe and he sat down
under a tree and fell fast asleep. Quietly the Lilliputians came out from
their hiding places and carefully began to tie Gulliver to the ground with
thread and tiny stakes the size of pins. No single stake or thread could
have held Gulliver immobile, but thousands of stakes and thread could do
the job. Gulliver was captured he lost his freedom. The same exact thing
can happen to you when you retire. You can lose your Freedom bit by bit,
second by second, and dollar by dollar. There is an alarm that goes off when you retire. You won’t
hear it, but everyone that knows you and many that you have never met hear
the alarm. And they get out their tiny stakes and their threads. They start
lurking behind the neighborhood trees. You won’t see them coming but they
are everywhere all around you. On your first day of retirement they are set
to start tying you down. Be vigilant; don’t nap where they can find you.
Nap at the library, go to the reading section and pull a very thick book
off the shelf. Make it a book on a boring topic like the Roman Empire.
Check the card in the back to make sure no one has ever taken the book out.
Sit down in the most comfortable chair available and snooze baby snooze
safely. Don’t worry about the librarian as long as you don’t snore your
safe. Also be careful not to answer the phone. Called ID only cost
$7 a month and it should be the highest priority on your retirement budget.
Never answer the phone when it rings but make a careful list of the
callers’ numbers and return the calls when you get up to go to the bathroom
in the middle of the night. Just say they called earlier and you weren’t
able to come to the phone and hang-up. If you get many calls, you might
further rent a PO Box and leave a message that you would be grateful for a
donation of $100. Promise that when as long as you get their monthly
contribution you will never have to call again. In some cases this can turn
out to be a nice boosted to your income. Anyone who is looking for any kind
of contribution should be solicited for contributions to your memorial
fund. If they don’t send you money, don’t send them money. Actually
never send money. It may be a terrorist plot to spread disease through the
mail. It is a good idea to take down your mailbox and claim that it has
vanished, alien are stealing your junk mail. I hate to say it but our families are the worst offenders when
it comes to tethering our freedom to a garbage truck. Luck for you I have
invented a psychosis that will keep your closest friend and family at bay.
It is called Compulsive Discommitment Syndrome, or CDS. The nature of the
psychosis is that you want to help everyone in everyway possible but you
are prohibited by from following through by CDS. It also manifests a
symptom that the inflicted can’t sign anything. Have little cards printed
up that say “This patient under medical care for CDS. He will not follow
through on any promise, commitment or donation that he will be happy to
make.” Signed Dr. Adrian Monk. This card is you get of jail free card. I
also suggest that you have a Tee shirt made with this same quote. This
technique takes a lot of discipline. Don’t sign anything. Promise total
support but give nothing. Pretend that you don’t remember agreeing to
anything. One final step, to assure you retirement Freedom; ask each of
your children and other relatives to please send you $5000 a month. This may seem extreme, but hear me out.
Granted that some of your children might find this beyond their ability to
pay; but starting on the month that you retire enter this debit into the
account of anyone who doesn’t send the money. It will grow rapidly and
provide you with a nice cushion and augmentation to you retirement funds.
You actually don’t have to even collect any money; but chances are that
someone will send you something and then this can be reported to everyone
else. It also allows you to become very generous because you can use these
resources to give extravagant gifts to everyone. For example suppose one of
your children had built up a debit of $50,000 (this only takes 10 months);
you could forgive $10,000 as an Xmas gift. But more important if they ever
actually need money and want to borrow from you, it is easy to authorize
special forgiveness of their debt. I feel once you have this system in
place borrowing will be held to minimum. |
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