Recently I've been thinking about my retirement and for the first time in my working life, to seriously address my pension provisions. This may seem strange to some, but until now pension has been something that I've put on the back burner, stupidly believing that something would come along to make ends meet. Now as the years pass by at an alarmingly rapid rate I'm not so sure.
In my youth and through my 20's I saw those who I knew retire, and they seemed burned out, old people who were ready to sit back and let others take over. I saw men who seemed to fizzle out before my eyes, the ghost of who they used to be once they stopped working.
Then over the past twenty years or so there has been a retrospective realisation that life expentency has now extended with better health care and healthier lifestyles and the age of retirement for government pensions has been raised. I was one of those unlucky women whose date of birth put me on the losing side on this decision. We have all been given govenment homilies now on ensuring that we have private pensions in place, since hearing about or even worse being victims of various pension schemes that have completely crashed.
The ethos now is one where we are all meant to be considering working for longer hours and more years in order to help build our savings up, but apparently it will also be good for our self esteem. Legislation has also come into force giving people rights to extend their working life into their 70's. In comparison to the rest of the EU we must now be a nation of confident and happy people as we have the least number of national holidays and the highest working hours over the day.
And I have been trying to assimilate all of this and think about how it relates to me. And - I came to the conclusion that retirement is not so much a giving up but a moving on, maybe having the money to do as you please rather than having to do as you are told for your daily crust. Taking a few risks by exploring other avenues that might make money; turning a hobby or enthusiasm into a means of revenue maybe, or taking a back seat in the work place in order to switch off at home and enjoy other activities that are out there to pursue. By trying not to let work define you, believing that it is your total life's achievement. By discovering hidden talents and understanding that life learning does not always have to do with updating workplace skills. By giving yourself to other things rather than the rat race, like watching the garden grow, children play, tasting the food and appreciating many of the good things in life that are often for free anyway.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Learning for Life
I know that having to work out what we want to do with our lives once we leave compulsory education happens to everyone, but I remember when I had to do it and I wasn't ready then, and now my son is in the same boat I feel a deja vu coming on.
When he finished school he felt that he still had a lot to learn and was even more keen to absorb knowledge and master new skills. College was the thing and he is enjoying the study and the meeting of other kids who have a similar outlook to himself. My son is one of those who is fortunate - or not - to be very able across a broad range of subjects. But what will he end up 'doing' I wonder to myself, how will he decide about making a living when all is said and done? He enjoys all the subject areas and for the moment cannot decide which way to take them.
Thank goodness, I innocently thought when he first started college at the end of the summer last year, that he may be able to postpone the final decision by having those three years in higher ed. A little more time to try and decide what ticks the boxes, a little leeway to network and make a few connections and explore. Oh how wrong I was.
The ugly recession has affected everyone, including the innocents who were too young to buy into anything at the time the fiscal fiasco was gaining force. Universities are having to tighten their belts and so the pressure is on. The standard of A levels is being challenged, the increasing number of kids going to university is being questioned, university level places are dropping and will only be for the very highest performing A* students, finding paid employment is almost impossible for the young and inexperienced and the good old technical qualifications that are reliant on apprenticeships are in decline.
I am in a blind panic. Apart from working very hard for 4 A levels, it used to be 3 in my day, I am now encouraging him to get out there and make his mark to add to his CV. Am I being reasonable? "You want to write son, then do it. Send your stuff into the editors" I plead with him. "Go make the film you always wanted to direct" I suggest.
However - this is all water off a duck's back as he seems to have no drive or ambition whatsoever. He is still young - how the time has flown - I cannot believe that schooling is over and the hard cold facts of life are going to kick in pretty soon, the way things are going. And I want to protect him still but I know that I cannot, he has to face life and make his own decisions and I must learn to stand back and watch him ignore my advice and go his own way and, what is most upsetting, learn by his own mistakes.
When he finished school he felt that he still had a lot to learn and was even more keen to absorb knowledge and master new skills. College was the thing and he is enjoying the study and the meeting of other kids who have a similar outlook to himself. My son is one of those who is fortunate - or not - to be very able across a broad range of subjects. But what will he end up 'doing' I wonder to myself, how will he decide about making a living when all is said and done? He enjoys all the subject areas and for the moment cannot decide which way to take them.
Thank goodness, I innocently thought when he first started college at the end of the summer last year, that he may be able to postpone the final decision by having those three years in higher ed. A little more time to try and decide what ticks the boxes, a little leeway to network and make a few connections and explore. Oh how wrong I was.
The ugly recession has affected everyone, including the innocents who were too young to buy into anything at the time the fiscal fiasco was gaining force. Universities are having to tighten their belts and so the pressure is on. The standard of A levels is being challenged, the increasing number of kids going to university is being questioned, university level places are dropping and will only be for the very highest performing A* students, finding paid employment is almost impossible for the young and inexperienced and the good old technical qualifications that are reliant on apprenticeships are in decline.
I am in a blind panic. Apart from working very hard for 4 A levels, it used to be 3 in my day, I am now encouraging him to get out there and make his mark to add to his CV. Am I being reasonable? "You want to write son, then do it. Send your stuff into the editors" I plead with him. "Go make the film you always wanted to direct" I suggest.
However - this is all water off a duck's back as he seems to have no drive or ambition whatsoever. He is still young - how the time has flown - I cannot believe that schooling is over and the hard cold facts of life are going to kick in pretty soon, the way things are going. And I want to protect him still but I know that I cannot, he has to face life and make his own decisions and I must learn to stand back and watch him ignore my advice and go his own way and, what is most upsetting, learn by his own mistakes.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Untitled
Whilst half listening to something on Radio 4 the other day, my ears pricked up for some reason when I heard a discussion about titles. Titles are something that many of us would tend to take for granted, and yet, they actually have an enormous influence that probably only our sub-consious is aware of. And it is this kind of subliminal messaging that I am curious about.
If we look to the dictionary for our definitions between a name and a title, there really isn't a lot in it. A title is desribed as '...the name of something such as a book or poem or art work, and a name is defined '... by which something is known ...'. Ok, so I have to confess that my dictionary was printed in 1978 and perhaps by today's standards the dictionary makers have now cottoned on to the fact that there is in fact a vast difference. Apparently, the difference could be between a multi-pound best seller or a flop, if we are looking at a new novel for example, especially if it has been written by an unknown writer.
The radio programme that I had tuned my attention to had a BBC programmer discussing the angst involved in finding the right title for launching a new drama for instance. She confessed that there had even been times when a programme would have been re-named half way through the series, resulting in a spectacular rise in numbers of viewers.
When I was a contemporary dance student of choreography, I remember well the problems I had with coming up with a decent working title for an abstract jumble of movement that I hadn't yet shaped in any way or form. However, our choreography tutors insisted that it was the right thing to do, as it would help us to focus our creative ideas. We could always change it at the end if we wanted to. The title itself caused no end of criticism and class discussion, and on occasion even before any of the dance itself had been viewed. The teacher would inform that the title was clumsy sounding, or too long and we kind of got the message, although there really were no hard and fast rules; as one of my tutors informed me, "It is a feeling darling, it's a feeling."
Looking back now, I think there may well be something in the approach of having a working title especially for a piece of art work. I am sure that I am not the only person to have felt short changed when trying to fathom an abstract piece of fine art that has been entitled: #4, whereas a worded title, something that we can affiliate ourselves with, gives us just that little more insight, helps us mere mortals to try and pinpoint where the artist is coming from. A title sort of feels almost like getting into the artist's head for me, but shouldn't the artwork be enough?
Conversely after all is said and done, I am also puzzled as to why my favourite title that I used for one of my dance pieces was after all a statement of the obvious. It was a solo dance that I sought inspiration from, among other things and rather pretentiously, TS Eliot's poem "The Wasteland". My choreographic statement was about a lonely housewife who dances with a broom and dreams of romance - I did incorporate a broom as it was a choreographic study in which we had to use a prop. For weeks I could not think of a title, and finally when I was under pressure to come up with something I blurted out in a sarcastic and irritated manner that the dance was called: 'Female with Prop' and to my surprise my tutor gave me a gracious smile and congratulated me on a very original title.
If we look to the dictionary for our definitions between a name and a title, there really isn't a lot in it. A title is desribed as '...the name of something such as a book or poem or art work, and a name is defined '... by which something is known ...'. Ok, so I have to confess that my dictionary was printed in 1978 and perhaps by today's standards the dictionary makers have now cottoned on to the fact that there is in fact a vast difference. Apparently, the difference could be between a multi-pound best seller or a flop, if we are looking at a new novel for example, especially if it has been written by an unknown writer.
The radio programme that I had tuned my attention to had a BBC programmer discussing the angst involved in finding the right title for launching a new drama for instance. She confessed that there had even been times when a programme would have been re-named half way through the series, resulting in a spectacular rise in numbers of viewers.
When I was a contemporary dance student of choreography, I remember well the problems I had with coming up with a decent working title for an abstract jumble of movement that I hadn't yet shaped in any way or form. However, our choreography tutors insisted that it was the right thing to do, as it would help us to focus our creative ideas. We could always change it at the end if we wanted to. The title itself caused no end of criticism and class discussion, and on occasion even before any of the dance itself had been viewed. The teacher would inform that the title was clumsy sounding, or too long and we kind of got the message, although there really were no hard and fast rules; as one of my tutors informed me, "It is a feeling darling, it's a feeling."
Looking back now, I think there may well be something in the approach of having a working title especially for a piece of art work. I am sure that I am not the only person to have felt short changed when trying to fathom an abstract piece of fine art that has been entitled: #4, whereas a worded title, something that we can affiliate ourselves with, gives us just that little more insight, helps us mere mortals to try and pinpoint where the artist is coming from. A title sort of feels almost like getting into the artist's head for me, but shouldn't the artwork be enough?
Conversely after all is said and done, I am also puzzled as to why my favourite title that I used for one of my dance pieces was after all a statement of the obvious. It was a solo dance that I sought inspiration from, among other things and rather pretentiously, TS Eliot's poem "The Wasteland". My choreographic statement was about a lonely housewife who dances with a broom and dreams of romance - I did incorporate a broom as it was a choreographic study in which we had to use a prop. For weeks I could not think of a title, and finally when I was under pressure to come up with something I blurted out in a sarcastic and irritated manner that the dance was called: 'Female with Prop' and to my surprise my tutor gave me a gracious smile and congratulated me on a very original title.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
In the Wild Wild Wood
What's all this stuff about women being poor at finding their way around, navigating and so on, whereas men are good at it? Over this past week I have read an article making serious claims that this assertion could soon become fact due to some such research or other. My Mother in Law said that she was always getting lost and not know her way around, even in relatively well known areas, and that she leaves the directions up to him - she indicates my Father in Law with a jerk of her thumb. I've seen 'him' take the michael something rotten when she's gone trolling off in the opposite direction, waiting for her to get right the way up the hill, or whatever, before calling her back.
Now, my husband has got a Sat Nav, which I asked his parents to get him for Christmas because I was getting fed up with being the map reader with my failing eye sight and tendency to travel sickness. Now that he's got one he refuses to use it and says that he doesn't need it - he says he knows his way around anyway and thought that I needed something to do on long journeys!
So, how has he been doing without me map reading? Well, alright I have to say, but whether its because he has some in-built compass or not I'm not so sure. It could be that he's just checking the route before hand, which he never used to, and since he has boastfully claimed that he doesn't need a Sat Nav, he now has to prove it or face the shame. However, now that I have been thinking along these lines as to whether there is any truth in women being poor at direction, over the years we have often been walking in woods and forests in areas that are new to us. I have always been secretly impressed by the way that he has navigated us back out, when I have to confess, I wouldn't have had a clue. Now, that is a thing to ponder on.
Now, my husband has got a Sat Nav, which I asked his parents to get him for Christmas because I was getting fed up with being the map reader with my failing eye sight and tendency to travel sickness. Now that he's got one he refuses to use it and says that he doesn't need it - he says he knows his way around anyway and thought that I needed something to do on long journeys!
So, how has he been doing without me map reading? Well, alright I have to say, but whether its because he has some in-built compass or not I'm not so sure. It could be that he's just checking the route before hand, which he never used to, and since he has boastfully claimed that he doesn't need a Sat Nav, he now has to prove it or face the shame. However, now that I have been thinking along these lines as to whether there is any truth in women being poor at direction, over the years we have often been walking in woods and forests in areas that are new to us. I have always been secretly impressed by the way that he has navigated us back out, when I have to confess, I wouldn't have had a clue. Now, that is a thing to ponder on.
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