Month: May 2021

I think most of us agree with the Greek proverb that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The truth of that axiom became apparent to me this week when I found myself having a visceral negative response to Margorie Taylor Greene and Matthew Graetz as well as a random older white woman who defended Greene’s ridiculous and offensive comment equating mask wearing mandates to the Nazi treatment of Jews. In my view, these are ugly people. I also find Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Ted Cruise to be particularly ugly humans. It doesn’t surprise me that others find them incredibly attractive. I’m starting to realize that the beauty or ugliness we see in others says more about the human attributes we value on an instinctual level rather than a conscious one.

When I think about the people I find attractive whether male or female, I realize that it is less about physical appearance and more about the persona and aura the person projects. I greatly value intelligence, authenticity, warmth, hard work, generosity, honesty, humility, caring, modesty, and confidence. People who strongly project these attributes are beautiful humans in my eyes and the more they project these attributes, the more I want to see them, listen to them, and be around them. I want humans like that to lead our nation and major corporations.

Not surprisingly, the opposite is true of people who project attributes I abhor. These include ignorance, stupidity, violence, dishonesty, arrogance, hostility, selfishness, greediness, boastfulness, self-centeredness, and meanness. I don’t want to be around such people and when they come on the television or appear in front of me, I find the fastest exit. These are ugly people in my eyes. But I realize that there are people who find these attributes attractive, particularly in leaders whom they think with protect them, further their aspirations, or feed their emotional needs.

While I recognize that every human possesses a cross section of these attributes, it is the tipping of the scale towards one attribute set versus the other that determines how attractive or ugly a person is in my eyes. In my determination of beautiful or ugly, intelligence, caring, and honesty tips the scale towards beauty while arrogance, violence, stupidity, dishonesty, and boastfulness tips the scale towards ugliness. If any of these latter qualities are prominent, then the person is really ugly in my eyes.

If I’m truthful with myself, I can’t view a stupid person as beautiful; that person will be pretty ugly to me no matter how generous or modest. Perhaps that is why I found that white woman who defended Greene’s comment to be absolutely ugly. I couldn’t say anything about her other attributes because I was focused on her unwavering love for Greene. This white woman was obviously ignorant, but knowing nothing, her stupidity was on clear display with how she valued attributes in Greene, even comparing Greene to Jesus.

I find myself asking why so many white people find Donald Trump attractive enough to want him as president. I wonder what attributes he projects that makes them believe he is good for America. It sounds sad, but I surmise that their loyalty to Trump has to do with protecting a false image of themselves. I think that recent human history has convinced many white people that they are better than everyone else and that they should maintain power over the country. As people of color quickly grow in numbers and slowly emerge from the oppression sustained by white violence, they feel threatened. I haven’t forgotten the Charlottesville march.

To their horror, the weight of oppression is lifting and they want to stop it. I suppose that Donald Trump is projecting their own arrogance and hostility back to them. Perhaps they need the boastfulness, the violence, and even the dishonesty to boaster their collective self-esteem. It is no wonder that Matt Gaetz stood up in his rally this past week and promoted the 2nd Amendment as a right to be used, not for hunting, but to take the nation back. From whom? If they can’t sustain white supremacy via lies and voter suppression, then will they once again resort to violence like on January 6th? But will they be heavily armed next time?

When people feel under threat, they are willing to abandon intelligence, honesty, caring and generosity in favor of deception that keeps a comfortable narrative in place. That narrative being white supremacy. And no matter how ugly the messenger is to the rest of us, these white supremacist find that messenger beautiful.

One of the first songs I learned in Sunday School was, “Jesus Loves the Little Children” wherein the song proclaims that Jesus loves all the children of the world and how they are red and yellow, black and white, and how they’re all precious in His sight. Another basic Sunday School lesson was about the importance of truth, being truthful, and how it is the truth that sets us free. And finally, the key lesson in Sunday School was to love God and our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. For years, the religious right Republicans claimed that they had the corner on Godly morality. They were the protectors of life and morality. They were the law and order party. They were the family values party. That is no longer accurate. Their full-fledged embrace of Donald Trump, the opposite of espoused Christian values like diversity, truth, and love for God and others, has corrupted their party to its core.

It saddens me to see supposed Christians turn a blind eye to the dehumanizing and demonization of immigrants. Christians, following Trump, abandoned basic Christian values by ignoring or even endorsing the separation of babies and children from their parents at our border. They forgot that a very pregnant Mary and Joseph were immigrants desperately fleeing danger at home. They forgot the parable of the Good Samaritan wherein Jesus taught us to welcome the stranger. Notably Jesus pointed out that it was the religious folk of the day who lacked compassion. Sound familiar? They’ve forgotten the condemnation Jesus had for those who harm children. They instead remained silent or complicit in the face of human cruelty and condoned the lie that blames the victims, abandoning the compassion Jesus requires of His followers. Instead they follow Trump. Sounds like idolatry to me. But that’s yet another problem right wing Christians are having and that a few upstanding Evangelical pastors are trying desperately to combat.

It confounds me to watch supposed Christians embrace a liar and then repeat lies he tells them. Christians were taught in Sunday School that the devil was a liar from the beginning and that he is the father of lies. Jesus taught us that it is the truth that sets us free. How can these Republican Christians completely forget that the Bible says that all liars will be cast in the lake of fire? And how can they completely ignore the lesson that bearing false witness is among the six things that God hates the most? The Bible, which they claim as their guide for living, repeatedly warns against lying and siding with liars. There are so many Bible references for the plight of liars. Here is just one: “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.” (Proverbs 19:9) This is basic Sunday School 101 and Republican leaders and even some Evangelical ministers are repeating lies that come directly from a confirmed liar, Donald Trump. Their source is the one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy and it’s so sad to hear that nonsense coming from the pulpit on Sunday mornings.

However, the worst of the worst is their total abandonment of love for neighbor. As they move to deny voting rights, human rights, public health, and human compassion in favor of protecting a non-existent plea for liberty disguised as white supremacy, we are all in peril. There is not a love for neighbor, but a fear and hatred of anyone who does not look like them, worship like them, or love like them. They are in favor of gun rights that claim innocent human lives in this country more than any other. They claim to be pro-life, but refuse to wear masks, social distance, or take a vaccine to protect us from COVID-19. They are actually just pro-white seeing how it is people of color who are dying the most from COVID-19 due to years of poverty and healthcare neglect.

All of this stems from the fact that the number of whites in this country is declining and people of color are making some political and economic progress. They feel threatened. Their pro-life abortion stance isn’t about anything other than how the statistics show that the highest percentage of abortions is among white women at greater nearly 60%. And most of those are among educated women who are claim Christianity as their religion, whether Catholic or Protestant. White supremacist want to stop this. They don’t care about black and brown babies; they care about white ones and getting that birth rate up. It is no surprise that black and brown women are more likely to die in childbirth due to lack of care and the downplaying of complications in childbirth. White supremacist masquerading as Christians have shown time and time again, that only their white lives matter. They push Jesus aside when they get bent out of shape when anyone else claims, what God Himself has said, that their lives matter, too.

It saddens me to conclude that white supremacy has supplanted true Christianity. But many may argue that this truth dates back to slavery itself and Jim Crow and lynching. They have forsaken their Sunday School lessons that center around love and truth in exchange for a bunch of political stances that are based in hatred and lies from the father of lies through his mouth piece, Donald Trump. I’m reminded of a scripture that talks about how God will eventually give godless and wicked people over to a reprobate mind. And it has become pretty apparent that the Republican Party has become morally bankrupt and incapable of living in reality. Their cowardly party leaders need to be ousted. But ultimately, I trust that the promises of God are true and that these lies and liars will meet their just end. If nothing else, their lies about COVID-19 will find them and hell will be their destination sooner than they think.

As for our country, it is up to the rest of us to make sure that we do not allow this immoral political party to succeed with their hateful white supremacist agenda. We have to keep the House and Senate in 2022 which means we’re going to have to vote like our country’s survival depends on it, because it literally does.

I saved the biggest retirement concerns for last. Medical concerns and financial considerations are the greatest sources of anxiety in retirement and require the greatest amount of attention. I know this has been true for me pre-retirement and for my husband during his four years of retirement.

In preparation for my retirement, I’ve been steadily checking off a list of medical checkups. I began in late January with a complete physical exam. It wasn’t surprising that my doctor told me that I need to eat less, eat better, sleep more, and continue to exercise. He stated his goal was for me to enjoy a healthy retirement. Following his advice was bound to improve my numbers and three months later, my lab test results were in fact much improved. I’m grateful that my pap and mammogram were both normal. My colonoscopy will occur later this month when the surgery center reopens. I had my post-COVID-19 dental cleaning and x-rays. Although I had no cavities, I had a filling replaced and scheduled a voluntary cap to take care of a food trap to prevent future problems. My dentist recommended a new toothpaste and two extra cleanings per year for added gum care recommended for older adults. My vision appointment is schedule for next month and I’ve obtained a referral to see a dermatologist for a check-up and also to remove several unsightly moles and to obtain a cream for age spots. I’m fully vaccinated against COVID-19, shingles, and pneumonia. Long time health issues are being monitored and treated effectively. My plan is to go into retirement with a good baseline and a medical regime in place. Of course, paying for healthcare will be a major monthly expense for the rest of my life, even with Medicare. In fact, it is a monthly expense that is larger than my mortgage.

Turning to expenses, over the last few months I reconfigured my monthly budget and developed a detailed plan to take distributions from my pension, savings, investments, and retirement savings over the next 30 years, saving Social Security for maximum payments later. I am now very happy that I began saving and investing for retirement in my early 20s. That slow and steady decision along with corporate and University contributions has put me in a very good place financially. Never doubt the power of time and steady market investments to build wealth. The best financial advice I received early in life was to automatically pay myself first every month, to protect my credit rating by paying bills on time, and to only take on good debt like a mortgage, student loads, and a car payment. These are debts that actually represent an investment in the future and a great credit rating results in the lowest available interest rate. It was my goal to be debt free with the exception of our home by retirement and we’ve accomplished this. Even though we have a mortgage, we have a lot of equity that puts us well into the black. A financial advisor once said that in retirement we should keep a mortgage for tax purposes, so even if we do sell and purchase a less expensive home, we will still finance that new house.

My husband jokes that he has enough saved for the both of us. And while that is definitely true, I’m an independent person who does not want to rely on anyone. And frankly, I enjoy financial planning and I can’t do that with someone else’s money. Since we married in 2003, we’ve always kept separate bank accounts and joint accounts for shared expenses. I’m sure that this being my second marriage has made a difference in my thinking about my financial independence. However, I encourage my children to look after their own financial health and not to rely on their spouses.

Another consideration unique to our second marriage is that my husband and I each have three children of our own. We agreed that we wanted to ensure that our children are beneficiaries of our joint and respective estates. I took a lesson from my father’s family situation wherein my grandfather married three times. His only five children were from his first marriage before she died. My father and his siblings had to watch in horror when my grandfather died from a stroke and everything my grandfather and their mother built together, including the family home and a vacation home, passed directly to his third wife and subsequently to her biological children. Neither of us wanted a scenario wherein our biological children were excluded from the money and assets we both worked to accumulate our entire lives. So, we spent $120 on notary fees to reconfigure our beneficiary list to provide 60% of our respective savings, investments, and retirement savings for our respective children. In California, a spouse is automatically guaranteed at least 50% from these accounts unless a notary witnesses the spouse’s signature to waive this right. So, we did this.

A long time ago, we established a Living Trust, then revised it a few years ago. Once I retire, we are going to revisit that Trust again to make revisions to include guidelines for the distribution of funds and items to our respective grandchildren. We have conversations about the different components that go into our Trust such as the will and the healthcare directives. These conversations help us determine what we really want and prevents future arguments among surviving family members.

Among one consideration, I would now prefer to be cremated instead of buried. As I continue with my decluttering project, in preparation for this revision, I am taking pictures of my jewelry and other special items and deciding who will get what specific item. Before I had broad categories listed. I’m thinking that I might begin distributing certain items throughout my retired life. It might be nice to actually see the items valued and enjoyed.

I built into my retirement distribution plan a set amount of mad money per year for just plain fun. Whether it’s money to take a trip, to take a class, to start a new hobby, or complete a pet project, it is nice to be in the position to know I have adequate funds to simply dream and enjoy myself.

In concluding my series of reflections on preparing for retirement, I think it has become clear that retirement planning starts years before retirement, particularly when it comes to health and wealth. The decisions made in ones twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties, will all have either a negative or positive impact on whether retirement is an option and at what level it can be enjoyed. Of course, there are those, who like me, didn’t believe in retirement back in my thirties. A financial advisor told me to save and invest anyway and to take care of your body anyway. And I’m so glad I did.

When my mother passed away in 1994, I was amazed by the amount of stuff she had accumulated and that we had to weed through. Her closets were jammed packed with clothes and many other items, some of which she had never used. Her garage had items that had been stored untouched for years. She wasn’t a hoarder, but just the average person who was too busy to declutter.

I’m not a hoarder either, but I recognize that I have more clothes than I need, more household items than are necessary, more kitchenware than I use, and in general more stuff than I really want. And this remains an issue despite the six or seven trips we make to the Goodwill donation center every year. Beyond not wanting to leave a mess for my children to sort through, I reference the observation Dr. Gupta makes in his book, “Keep Sharp”, that clutter is bad for brain health as it disrupts clear and organized thinking. And I have found this to be true. However, beyond promoting clearer thinking, decluttering has other benefits, but the task isn’t as simple as it seems.

Those trips to Goodwill represent our elimination of the easy stuff such as the replacement of an old television with a newer version or the donation of pants that no longer fit. What’s more difficult are the items we purchased because we liked them, thought we needed them, or think we might need them in the future. I struggle with getting rid of the perfectly good sweater that fits well but that I haven’t worn for three years but might want to wear next winter. Will I regret donating such a sweater?

To help me with this conundrum, I enlisted the help of Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese art of decluttering and organizing”. From this book, I learned to take my time with decluttering and to get in touch with my actual feelings towards items like the sweater I didn’t wear for three years. Her question, “Does it spark joy?” was a breakthrough. The idea of what to “keep” as opposed to what to throw away was a different mindset that I embraced.

Through the book, I learned to approach each item of clothing and other items to determine if I really want the item because it “speaks to the heart”. Perhaps the item once sparked joy, but no longer does. Rather than feel guilty about discarding a perfectly good item, she says to thank the item for “giving me joy when I bought you”. Expressing that gratitude before saying goodbye to items that the rational me would keep but the intuitive me knows I no longer desire, is liberating.

So, I recently began my slow journey of deciding what to keep, drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf, closet by closet. It is really a slow and ongoing process. The one thing I did decide to do was to stop purchasing new stuff for now. I’m seriously reflecting on the lifestyle and fashion style that will suit the retired me. As I sort through clothes and household items, the truth of who I am today and what sparks joy and excitement in me is bound to emerge. That will reveal who the early retired me is.

I am excited that the process of decluttering is not a one time process, but an ongoing process that will help keep my mind sharp, provide that euphoric feeling of lightness, keep me in touch with who I am as a human being in the moment, and when I leave this earth will be less of a burden on my children.

As for the sweater, I did in fact thank it for the joy it brought me when I purchased it before gently placing it in the Goodwill donation bag.

Last week I unveiled the 7-8 hours of sleep rule, the eat well and less rule, and the minimum of 150 hours per week of exercise rule as three of my rules for retirement. I’ve been trying to establish these rules as habits by paying attention and self-parenting. I have to admit that the last two nights, I had to tell myself that it was bedtime at 9pm. It felt strange, but I complied with my voice of discipline. Eating right is proving to be the greatest challenge. I’ll eat the good stuff with no problem. My problem is lacking discipline to refuse the bad stuff, especially when my husband lays the bad stuff right in front of me. I feel like I need to ban his trips to Costco and the grocery store. Perhaps when I retire, I will simply accompany him there to provide “adult” supervision.

Rule number four comes directly from Dr. Gupta’s book, “Keep Sharp”, on brain health. In the book, Dr. Gupta goes into great detail about the need to stay actively engaged in learning and socializing. He makes the argument for staying employed as a means of fulfilling both of these brain requirements as well as maintaining a sense of purpose. I thought about changing my mind about retirement for about 30 seconds before deciding that I really do want to retire from my current job.

I’ve spent the last several months really contemplating how I want to spend my time and energy. Sitting around watching television all day is literally a death sentence to both the brain and the body. However, the freedom to direct my brain and body to pursue the things my job hasn’t allowed time for feels really good. As I’ve aged, I’ve noticed a decline in my physical energy. I’m no longer the energizer bunny I was in my twenties, thirties, forties, and even fifties when I could come home from a full day of work, excited to take on the house, kids, friends, church, classes, community, teaching, and hobbies. I look back at my former self and wonder how I did all that. In those days, I couldn’t even imagine retiring. But as my energy began to wane both physically and even mentally, I noticed that my life was consumed with work demands and that I had very little energy for anything else. For the first time, I learned what it meant to be physically tired and mentally drained at the end of a work day. I didn’t want to see anyone or do anything after work because I was exhausted. The weekends became a way to recharge for another demanding work week.

So, retirement comes as a welcome relief that will allow me to channel my current energy level into the people and activities I actually care most about. I care most about my family and friends, but over the last few years, I realize that too much of my physical, emotional and mental energy has been channeled into my University and it’s students whose needs have grown. I find myself digging deep into my reserves to meet the needs of my husband and kids, often ignoring extended family and friends just to survive. In retirement, family and friends can once again emerge as the primary beneficiaries of the best I have to offer in love, laughter, kindness, and support. I’m excited to reconnect with extended family and friends more consistently and without having to apologize for presenting my exhausted self.

Retirement will also offer me the opportunity to pursue my current interests with renewed vigor and take on new interests as well. I have plans around children’s books that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion as a worthwhile human value. I will continue to knit and I’ll donate items to hospitals, perhaps the neo-natal ward where my daughter-in-law is a pediatrician. I will continue to garden because being outside nurturing flowers, fruits, and vegetables is not only incredibly rewarding, but good exercise. I will take drawing and painting classes and re-engage with learning Spanish. I will become more active with my sorority after taking a break for most of last year because I believe in service to all mankind. I am considering getting involved with political campaigns as I care deeply about who runs our country. And finally, I am considering the possibility of doing some more traveling, although the thought of another long flight is unappealing.

For me, retirement is the opportunity to reset my priorities to reflect the legacy I want to leave in this world. The rule to stay actively engaged in learning and socializing is a rule where compliance is easy.