American Retirement, Vietnamese Retirement

While enjoying a morning coffee and checking emails, Mr. Old Man came across a post on Quora. A Western lady was sharing what a typical day looked like for her newly retired husband.

What surprised Mr. Old Man was that the post contained no profound philosophy or life-changing wisdom. It simply described an ordinary day: exercising in the morning, having breakfast, reading the news, mowing the lawn, tinkering with a laptop, watching TV, fixing dinner…

Yet the post had received nearly 3,000 upvotes and more than 300 comments.

It must have scratched an itch shared by many retirees

Looking closer, Mr. Old Man noticed that most of the commenters were in their seventies and eighties. One gentleman, now 80 years old, proudly mentioned that he had started writing poetry at age 75 and had since published two collections containing more than 800 poems.

That made Mr. Old Man laugh

He had always thought that only retired Vietnamese gentlemen developed a sudden passion for poetry, printed their poems, and handed them out to friends. Apparently, seniors everywhere are the same. Once you reach a certain age, poetry seems to flow out almost automatically

Reading Stephanie’s post, Mr. Old Man realized that, in spirit, her husband’s day was not all that different from his own. The details differed, of course — American style versus Vietnamese style.

The American retiree lives the American way:

He wakes up, stretches, takes a shower, prepares his own breakfast, reads the news, listens to podcasts, mows the lawn, repairs a laptop, watches baseball, watches TV…

As for Mr. Old Man, he prefers the Vietnamese version:

A morning swim in the sea, a leisurely bike ride to a coffee shop, answering a few trade finance questions, writing random articles, watching the sunset in the afternoon, then scrolling through Facebook before turning on a Chinese web drama to help him fall asleep

When you think about it, American retirement and Vietnamese retirement are not all that different.

The happiest retirees are not necessarily the busiest ones.

They are simply the people who still wake up each morning with a few things they genuinely enjoy doing.

Mr. Old Man especially liked one sentence Stephanie wrote:

“Life is what you make it.”

How true.

Retirement does not mean running out of things to do.

It simply means having the freedom to choose the things you enjoy doing — and staying pleasantly busy because of them

____________

Mr. Old Man