Skip to main content

What are the best ways to live in the old age when nobody wants to take care of you?

 Survey after survey shows, the greatest fear for someone in old age is being alone and having your life slowly fall apart. It is a terrifying prospect that until you get there, you want to avoid even thinking about it.

Every family has an excuse, there is no end to the reasons why you can’t take care of Mom, or god forbid Dad as Dads are always way more difficult and all but useless once they are no longer earning money and have few home skills other than having a drink at ‘5 o’clock somewhere’, but the reality is it is a global problem now, not even the Chinese or Japanese or other Asians are taking care of their parents any more. Everyone is ‘outsourcing’ the care of their loved ones and it is a frightening prospect to say the least to find yourself increasingly unable to take care of yourself in a very expensive landscape with diminishing funds. And let’s face it, everyone has diminishing resources especially the longer you live.

Unfortunately, we all must face the prospect of being alone or unwanted or your family just cannot take care of you.

Old angry and drinking alone, look like anyone you know including maybe yourself?

Having gone through this many times with relatives including my Mother and others, at some point it happens. Unless you have so much money you can paper it over or so many relatives, (eg children) who all agree somehow to pitch in to take care of you.

The ‘best’ way of course is planning as others have noted. I have several friends who have sold their properties and now live in retirement homes. I personally have not planned in this manner. Am I taking a risk that my partner will not be there for me? Yes, I suppose so.

Like others I exercise every day, I have children but don’t expect anything from them. In the end the best thing you can do is find a space that is simple, yours, no debt, have some steady retirement income that is enough to live on. Savings if you can manage it.

My experience is the layout has to be something you can do over and over no matter what shape you are in . If you lose your sight gradually, if you lose your mind, if you lose your ability to walk well. Go through the stages in advance, plan and then when you need to, make that move. Most importantly, it must be one level, not a single stairs if you can avoid it.

Be in control, get your mob phone pre programmed by numbers so you can call anyone and everyone that you need. Whether it is 911 or your kids, your diminishing number of friends, your doctor, your relatives.

Stay active in your mind at the minimum, walk, walk and walk again. Never stop walking and moving.

Go until you cannot, no planning can overcome giving up. Never give up. You don’t have to. You can do this for you.

After all, in the end it may be all you have left is you.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE SET GOALS?

You might be thinking right now, "Well, this all sounds so inspiraional, but surely just setting a goal doesn't make it happen." I couldn't agree with you more. All goal setting must be immediately followed by both the development of a plan, and massive and consistent action toward its fulfillment. You  already have this power to act. If you haven't been able to summon it, it's merely because you have failed to set goals that inspire you.  What's holding you back? Surely you've been exposed to the power of goal setting before. But do you have a list of clearly defined goals for the results you will absolutely produce in your life mentally, emotionally,physically, spiritually, and financially? What has stopped you? For many it's the unconscious fear of disappointment. Some people have set goals in the past and failed to achieve them and, as a result of their disappointment and their fear of future pain, they stop setting goals. They don't ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Questions Are The Answer.............

They needed no reason. They came simply because he was of  Jewish descent. The Nazis stormed into his home, arresting him and his entire family. Soon they were herded like cattle, packed into a train, and then sent to a death camp n Krakow. His most disturbing nightmares could never have prepared him for seeing his family shot before his very eyes. How could he live through the horror of seeing his child's clothing on another because his son was now dead as the result of a "shower"? Somehow he continued. One day he looked at the nightmare around him and confronted an inescapable truth: if he stayed there even one more day, he would surely die. He made a decision that he must escape and that escape must happen immediately! He knew not how, he simply knew he must. For weeks he'd asked the other prisoners, "How can we escape this horrible place?" The answers he received seemed always to be the same. "Don't be a fool," they said, "the...
Post a Comment
Read more

"This, too, shall pass,"

Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania did an intensive research on what creates learned helplessness. In his book Learned Optimism he reports on three specific patterns of beliefs that cause us to feel helpless and can destroy virtually every aspect of our lives. He calls these three categories permanence, pervasiveness, and personal. Many of our country's greatest achievers have succeeded in spite of running into huge problems and barriers. The difference between them and those who give up revolves around their beliefs about the permanence, or lack thereof, of their problems.  Achievers rarely, if ever, see a  problem as permanent, while those who fail, see even the smallest problems as permanent. Once you adopt the belief that there's nothing you can do to change something, simply because nothing you've  done up until now has changed it, you start to take a pernicious poison into your system. No matter what happens in your life, you've got ...
Post a Comment
Read more