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Fin24 user Roger Mayes has expressed dismay at a user letter stating that society has decided that pensioners are of no further use to the workforce.
He writes: "I get very frustrated by articles such as 'Pensioners: we are not useless'.
"In my opinion, if you have reached retirement age reasonably financially independent and in good health and you do not know how to keep yourself motivated and interested, then you certainly ARE pretty useless.
"I look at it this way. If you work for an income then you are of necessity doing what someone else wants you to do. If you are not doing what your manager/shareholders/customers want you to do, when they want you to do it and how they want you to do it, then you are not going to get paid.
"The moment you retire, you become free to do what YOU want, when YOU want to do it, and how YOU want it done. I do know what I am talking about. I have been retired for nine years, and I can put my hand on my heart and declare that I have not been bored for one second in all of that time.
"That is more than I can say for my working life, when I frequently had to do things which I found boring or meaningless just because someone else needed them to be done. And that was in the IT industry, one of the most stimulating and dynamic fields in which to earn a living.
"Now that I am retired, at any time I have a choice of activities which I find rewarding for different reasons. I am involved in conservation. I do creative woodwork. I love photographing nature, mainly birds and insects. I play hockey at Grandmaster (60+) level. I go to the gym on a regular basis. And I still do not have enough time to do all the reading I would like to. Apart from sport, I virtually never watch television - there is always something more interesting to do.
"People have told me that I am lucky because I have hobbies. Luck has precious little to do with it.
"For example, five years before my planned retirement date I decided I needed a retirement activity which I could pursue at home in my own time and as my physical powers declined. I had enjoyed making the odd article out of wood for my children - desks and chairs, dolls houses etc. So I decided to take up woodwork.
"I now make decorative veneered boxes. Those which have not been given away are sold at charity craft sales. As my skills, knowledge and capabilities have developed, I have experienced more personal growth in the first ten years of my retirement than I did in the last twenty years of my working life. But only because I actively looked for an activity which I would find meaningful.
"Jean-Paul Sartre said that man is condemned to be free. That can only be true if one does not know what to do with freedom. And if you do not know that, then maybe you should have some fun by finding out, rather than scuttling back into the comfort zone of the working environment from which you have just been released."
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