Come On Back

Certain retirement "experts" advocate that people change their retirement plan and work as long as possible instead of taking early retirement. This is supposed to keep their minds in better shape. In fact, working at a job, instead of retiring as early as possible, could have the opposite effect.

According to a recent study reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, British civil servants who retire as early as possible may have better mental health than their counterparts who stay on the job as long as possible. Researchers used questionnaires to compare civil servants who retired at 60 with those who kept working. Surprisingly, they found that mental health and agility improved among retirees but declined among workers. "Mental decline can be caused by chronic tress," stated one of the researchers, "and it is possible that such stress in some of those who continued to work accounted for the decline in mental functioning."

There may be a much better explanation for the decline in the decline in the retirees' mental health. In his essay Abolish Work: Workers of the World, Relax, Bob Black offered some food for thought: "You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous."

Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings to Help You Retire Early

Here are five retirement quotations that extol the advantages of taking Early Retirement:

• #1 of Five Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings I'm retired - goodbye tension, hello pension!
  - Unknown wise person
• #2 of Three Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings I've learned that the secret of growing old gracefully is never to lose your enthusiasm for meeting new people and seeing new places.
  - Unknown wise person
• #3 of Five Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings In retirement, I look for days off from my days off.
  - Mason Cooley
• #4 of Five Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings I enjoy waking up and not having to go to work. So I do it three or four times a day.
  - Gene Perret
• #5 of Five Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings Retirement itself is the best gift. No gold watch could ever top it.
  - Abigail Charleson

Ernie J. Zelinski is a leading authority on early retirement and solo-entrepreneurship.

Ernie is the author of the recently released Real Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations, the bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor (over 95,000 copies sold and publlished in 7 foreign languages), and the international bestseller The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed, and Overworked (over 225,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages). His latest work is 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting.

Check out Ernie's:
The Retirement Jokes Caf and his Retirement Quotes and Retirement Sayings on The Joy of Not Working Website

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