'EXIT' before 'ENTER'. How to Escape the Cycle of Stress, Anxiety, and Misery in Retirement?

We've all been taught and pushed in the direction to better perform and produce more in life. We've been encouraged to choose specific role models to follow and identify with. Extraordinary efforts have been made to become better educated, from an early age, and to better fit into society and earn enough to provide a solid, secure foundation for the survival of ourselves and our families...

Down the road, we've got to the point where we are 100% identified with the role we have taken, and at the end of the day, we become that role, whether it is a doctor, lawyer, gardener, or any other occupation we choose to have.

Down the road, we've got to the point where we are 100% identified with the role we have taken, and at the end of the day, we become that role, whether it is a doctor, lawyer, gardener, or any other occupation we choose to have.

We have all gotten committed to individual identities and prejudices.

So where is the problem? What's wrong with that?

First of all, we need to understand that we have been tricked into believing that our efforts will pay out somewhere in the future, in our retirement. Then we will live a normal life where we will have enough time, money, and energy to spend with our friends and with our family or to do what we always desired to do but did not have the chance before. The only problem with this model is that this is the biggest lie that has been told/sold to us!

The biggest lie is that we will enjoy when we are retired!

Nobody told us when we are 65+ we are old, unfortunately, most of us are sick and unable to take care of ourselves. It's very, very far away from the picture we imagined before. Why is it like that? It is because human beings are not able to experience the future or past, we can only experience the present moment. Therefore, our conclusions can only be based on our own experience, and that is the experience of the present moment. At the present moment, we are healthy and full of energy, and based on this experience, we accept voluntarily to become a slave of the system, to serve it until we retire because we think we will have the same energy, health, and approach to life in 20-30 or 40 years from now. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

We are not able to experience the future or past, we can only experience the present moment.

Nowadays I am spending more and more time with elderly people. Instead of seeing them enjoying their retirement, they are all, more or less involved in everyday functioning similarly to what they have been doing for the past 40-50 years. The habits remain the same. Only the health is less, the time is less and the people around them are less.

In the pause between visiting the doctors and finding out who is still alive in their surroundings in the circle of friends and family, I can notice fear, anxiety, and misery. The fear of death, the lack of a fulfilled social life, and the misery in the way how they handle their everyday needs for food for example came to the point where they finally understood that they could do life differently.

Fear of death, lack of a fulfilled social life, and miserable survival mode are what most retired people are facing nowadays.

How to overcome this? How to make sure we will not end up in the same boat? As the headline suggests, we need to start working on our 'ENTER' strategy, and not anymore on our 'ENTER' strategy, because we already entered this boat, which has more and more holes, and which is sinking each day more and more.

Nobody taught us in school to think about an exit strategy in life. The exit strategy is a way to plan, execute, and maintain the path that will release us from all negative strings attached to us, the exit strategy will give us less work, and more time, an exit strategy that will give us freedom and not slavery.

The 'ENTER' strategy brings attachments while the 'EXIT' strategy gives us freedom.

The exit strategy gives us freedom and releases us from slavery, gives us time, and health, and if planned, executed, and maintained properly, gives us wealth & and health at the same time.

Similar to the 'EXIT' strategy in business, we need to start thinking about the 'EXIT' strategy in our everyday life, starting from today.

This is an introduction to the next few articles on 'EXIT' strategy that will become your guideline for a better life! I will present my own experience of how I built up my 'EXIT' strategy and how far am I currently with it.

The first step to the 'EXIT' strategy is having a plan. I will show you my tryouts and failures and walk you through the steps I made to build a solid exit strategy plan. See you next week!