Just four weeks after announcing his retirement as the head football coach at the University of Alabama, the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant collapsed and died at the age of 69 despite having passed a routine physical the day before.
Medical evidence to the contrary, some to this day still contend that once his coaching career was over, there was nothing to look forward to and therefore nothing to continue living for.
Bryant himself had once eerily joked that once he was through coaching he would "probably croak in a week."
My grandmother once shooed me off her couch where I was reclining and watching some mindless afternoon movie, and delivered a lecture whose primary point was that "busy hands are happy hands."
I was reminded of the above-mentioned vignettes after reading that a survey of more than 2,000 high net worth folks showed that roughly 60 percent of those respondents plan to practice the relatively new mantra of "nevertirement."
The poll, conducted by Barclay's Wealth, indicates that the concept of working later in life is expected to balloon over the next decade with 70 percent of the survey respondents under the age of 45 saying they would always be involved in some form of work, asopposed to, say, "teeing off every day at 10 and meeting for shuffleboard at 4.
In particular, about 75 percent of respondents in the U.S. plan to work on a part-time basis after they have stopped working permanently, and more specifically, 32 percent plan to work between five and 20 hours per week in retirement and 7 percent plan to work more than 20 hours per week.
Furthermore, one in 10 of those polled do not feel they have enough money to retire, which if I had to guess was probably a more motivating reason to keep going than fear of assuming "room temperature" as a result of ambitionless existence. Although that sort of reminds me of that great quote in the movie Wall Street, "How many yachts can you water ski behind?"
Now, no one would ever confuse me with a high net worth individual, but I never had any desire to call it quits at age 65 or even later than that. Although in full disclosure, I doubt I will still be covering this fine profession.
I don't have a fear of winding up in an empty refrigerator box cooking squirrel under a bridge in my golden years, but then I don't plan to check out earlier than I have to because there was nothing on my to-do list.
I'm confident I'll be able to maintain an equitable mix of mindless movies with busy hands.
I think even my grandmother would approve.
