What problems do old people usually have?
What is your personal experience with old people?
Do you spend any time with older people?
What can young people learn from the old?
Where do old people generally live in your country?
What do retirement homes offer elderly people?
How do the elderly spend their time?
Does society have a responsibility to look after its elderly?
Interaction –How the elderly can contribute to society
You and your partner(s) have just retired and as you feel both physically and mentally fit, you want to get involved in some activity that benefits society, especially those in need.
Discuss how beneficial to society the activities below can be and then try to agree on two to do together. Give reasons for your choice.
Food bank: Distribute food and clothes to poor families
Teaching immigrant children: Teach Spanish or literacy
Lollipop man/woman: Bring safety to children on their way to school
Help line: Check on other elderly people with no one to talk to
Prison visitor: Give support and advice to people doing time
Babysit: Look after the children of working parents
Computer literacy: Teach technology to other elderly people
Helping vet: Rescue and look after stray pets
To illustrate the topic you can watch this video by Prudential, where a woman talks about her first day after retirement.
Well I think that happy is a momentary thing. Happiness comes and goes. I think contentment is there all the time even underneath when you’re having a problem. I mean to be content, you have to work with what you’ve got.
I guess there is something in me that I’ve always been strong. I’ve always gotten through some pretty rough stuff without falling to pieces. It’s my nature to survive, it’s my nature to land on my feet.
It’s kind of hard to make decisions by yourself all of a sudden when you’ve been making them with somebody else for 35 years.
I had a wonderful, wonderful happy marriage and I was well loved and so many people don’t have that. So they gave him three to six months but we all knew better. He sort of sit enough and he reached out and touched my face and died in my arms.
The good thing about change is that you grow each time, you expand each time I think. My executive director and I started talking about it in the spring that I might take early retirement and I just got antsy, I just said, you know I need to go and do this if I’m going to do it, I need to do it.
Good morning, buddy, what’s up there? Ok, Ok, I’m getting up, I’m doing it.
He don’t talk back, he just looks like he understands.
Tom didn’t leave very much but he left me a little money. I bought Dicken with the last of the money that he left me. Just the companionship is, made a huge difference. I think when you hug somebody you just feel that sense of being loved and being held. I think that’s contentment. I think if you can carry that with you which pretty much do just feel like I’m walking around in one big hug.
Day one. First day of my retirement. First day I never had to answer anybody for anything, except Dicken. Gotta give him his treats or he’d be unhappy.
