"Life begins at retirement."  -Author Unknown

 

   


Retired--Next Phase 

Retirement - the Best Phase of your life!   

 

 Ed and Gail
       Ed Topar and Gail Cassidy


January 1, 2016
        
Issue #6, Volume 1       

 
And a new year begins!! Every January is an opportunity for a "do-over," a chance to make your life even better than it has been. Every person in the world wants to feel good, physically, mentally, and spiritually. And those are the reasons we publish our monthly e-zine.

Our mission is very simple: It is to provide information and stories that will enable readers to maximize their enjoyment of this special time of their lives; namely, retirement. There is no one retirement formula that fits all, that's for sure! That is why we seek out stories and unique ideas from other retirees who are enjoying this segment of their lives so we can share them with our readers.

Step One to better enjoyment of your retirement life is to understand your own strengths and your greatest enjoyments. What is it that you can't not do? Are you a fixer-upper, a person who helps others, a crafts person, a volunteer, a teacher, a cook, entertainer, a person who enjoys being around others or a person who enjoys solitude? What is it you most enjoy doing? When you know what those things are focus as much of your time as feasible doing them!! 

Step Two is surround yourself with passionate people, people who are excited about what they do, people who make you feel motivated, even if they are not at all like you. Their path of curiosity may be totally different from yours, but that makes the interaction even more exciting--it broadens your horizon! Avoid complainers and naysayers or those who enjoy talking about the underbelly of the world. We are aware of the problems in the world. Our job is to make our world and the worlds of our families better, and we can do that if we opt for being/doing the best that we can do and enjoy what we're doing--that's the definition of making the world a better place.

Happy January!!
Ed and Gail


MAY YOUR 2016 BE FILLED WITH 
HAPPINESS AND GOOD HEALTH!  
   
fireplace_feet_warm.jpg

 
A CREATIVE WAY TO REVIEW YOUR LIFE

Part II of thought-provoking ideas to think about. These topics will add to your own self-understanding. Take some time and actually fill in the thought-provoking blanks. Enjoy!!

Finding Fire With Anthony DeMello by John Callanan
(Different types of meditation, fantasy prayer and styles of reflection are described to help the reader to unlock their potential, get their lives into focus and deal with pain and failure. Like the work of de Mello himself, John Callanan's book gives those who search, those who think and those who suffer some food for thought.)

- Risks I took and dangers I have courted
 
- Lessons life has taught me
 
- Influences that have shaped my life (persons, occupations, books, events)
 
- My life's proudest moments
 
- Persons enshrined in my heart

 
Choose an ending for this exercise - a poem (yours or someone else's), a quote, a sketch, or anything you would judge as an apt conclusion to your memories to this point in your life.
 

May 2016 be your best year yet!!
 
A Lesson From Charlie Brown

 


  QUOTE OF THE MONTH Article Headline
  
Today, I interviewed my grandmother for part of a research paper I'm working on for my Psychology class. 

When I asked her to define success in
her own words, she said, "Success is when you look back at your life and the memories make you smile."
    

CAN YOU NAME THE YEAR?
          
CAN YOU NAME THE YEAR?

- U.S. breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
- President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps
- Burt Lancaster wins the Best Actor Academy Award for "Elmer Gantry"
- Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space
- First in-flight movie shown on a TWA flight
- Disney's "101 Dalmations" movie released in theaters
- Construction of the Berlin wall begins in East Germany
- JFK advises Americans to build fall-out shelters
- U.S. members of the Communist Party are obliged to report themselves to the local police
- Final movie for Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, "Misfits," released

SEE ANSWER IN NEXT BLOCK

A BIT OF HUMOR

A farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred laying hens, called pullets, and ten roosters. He was proud of the production records he kept, and any rooster that didn't perform was soon into the soup pot and replaced.


His system for tracking the production of his roosters was simple. Each rooster had a bell attached that made a different sound, so the farmer could tell by the sound of the bell how active each rooster was.

One day he noticed that strangely, he had not heard the bell of his most productive rooster, Fred, so he went to see what was happening. He noticed that all the other roosters were chasing pullets, bells 'a ringing, all over the yard. Fred, however, had the bell in his beak so it wouldn't ring and would sneak up on a pullet, do his job, and walk on to the next pullet.

The Result:

The farmer was so proud of Fred the rooster that he told everyone about him and Fred was awarded the NO BELL PIECE PRIZE and the PULLET SURPRISE  as well.

 

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------             
The answer to "Can You Name the Year" is 1961

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Gail Cassidy, [email protected]; (908) 654-5216
http://www.Retired-NextPhase.com

Ed Topar, [email protected] 

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