Hypocrisy and preparing for a good retirement

Hypocrisy and preparing for a good retirement

Do you remember the week before last when the alliance made a call on the man in the white house? Kutti Nasheed (Info & Legal Reform Minister) stated the next day that Ibra was in fact a 'hypocrite' for appearing outside and lobbying, because he 'knew' from a meeting that the ‘biggest liar of all’ Golhaabo, was going to ratify the constitutional amendment on the 30th July.

So here we are, the 30th is past now and just the night before, even though the ‘biggest liar of all’ Golhaabo said there was no way he would ratify unless 3 bills were passed, he has stated that he will ratify now (if he remembers) on the 7th August. Maybe this was because he changed his mind on passing the other bills after arming the Police (good idea, but maybe they might shoot themselves in the foot again and again).

So maybe Ibra was not practising hypocrisy, but actually trying to hep someone else's integrity stay intact or just knowing that as we get older the memory tends to fade, just keeping things on track. Ah I just thought, maybe Ibra forgot too? But with such a busy schedule I guess, it is possible for things to slip your mind, like when are you the president of a country and when are you the leader of a new party, all very confusing stuff, not to mention keeping track of who loves you and who don't!

Anyway, with the passing of time, I got onto thinking about long term relationships, often over time they change and can even become abusive relationships if you are not careful, especially if one person takes advantage of the other and believes change is something others have to do but not them.

If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, should you simply continue because you at some stage admitted you loved the other person? For the abuser to then state that the other person is wrong and say bad things about them, simply because they do not love them anymore is not normal, is it? In extreme cases, the drawing up of a list of names is certainly moving towards criminal paranoia, just look up the profile of any serial killer to see this sort of behaviour appearing quite common. Luckily at this stage, most people are stopped before they do anything radical with the list, common sense tends to prevail. Yes, common sense!

Another relationship problem, here in Male' somewhat associated with the change in regulation, since the inception of the Civil Service Bill, is the enforced retirement of aged workers. When someone has been faultlessly serving a government for over 50 years and the job is his life, insurance companies all over the world will tell you that they are likely to pass away just a short time after being forced to retire. This is a very sad and serious problem that we should be thinking about as more people are foreced to retire. It is sad to think that some people can become so dependent on their work life to the point that their job is their life but it is a fact also.

I would urge anyone that has been plugging away at the same job for 30 years and is over the age of 70, to seriously think about what quality time they have left. To start thinking about retirement activities more pertinent to their latter years, maybe gardening or knitting, maybe writing a book or simply enjoying being relatively healthy and stress free, when so many others around them have not been so lucky.

One of the joys of getting older is to look back at all the many wonderful opportunities you have had in your life and how you have used them to fulfil your own dreams. Of course there may have been times where you put your own needs ahead of others, but then we are all human, dheththo?

Maybe some of the furniture you have made over the years, (often at your own expense) has let you down, perhaps an old cabinet or two, don't worry, you can always throw them away and get another model. These days with the arrival of newer and cheaper materials, they can be bought almost anywhere. No need to keep the unwanted bits in some sort of storage either, just send them to Thilafushi with all your other unwanted items, after all there is plenty of room there thanks to an old friend.

So that brings us onto the retirement home, maybe you would want to downsize from your current residence, or maybe it was provided with your job and you cannot rely on being able to continue to rent it. This is where overseas investments will have been so useful, especially offshore accounts in countries that are fairly 'gray' in their methods, with numbered accounts you can assure that tax will never be a problem later. Towards the last couple of years at work, if you could lay your hands on any spare cash, it is best to get it out of sight and into overseas investments; you never know what a future government might do with your money, deththo?

Anyway, I hope these few thoughts have been useful to some people, if only one person applies this, and then it has been worth it.

Happy retirement without hypocrisy.

And, don’t forget to get a pet cat! They can be good companions at old age!