Welcome to Your Inspired Retirement, a community of active, motivated retirees (and others) that are inspired and inspiring others to create a better life and a better world.
My name is Wayne Karatsu and I started this blog after retiring from a 39 year career in the environmental science field in 2019. At first retirement was great – no alarm clocks, no deadlines, no annoying bosses – but after about six months, I began to get antsy and wonder what I could do to make my life more fulfilling. Searching the internet wasn’t a big help – most searches having to do with a “successful retirement” or “fulfilling retirement” led to articles that were about financial planning or investing for retirement. While those topics are definitely important, I’m at a stage in my life where happiness, health, community, and legacy are more important than money and can’t be bought, no matter how well your 401-K is doing. So if I couldn’t find what I was looking for on the web, I thought that I would try my hand at creating it, even though I have no experience or expertise in blogging. So here goes!
Although things will change and evolve as I grow as a blogger and as the input from this community influences the content, I envision three main topics, or categories, of discussion:
Retire
How do we navigate this thing called retirement? According to psychologists, it is ranked as the tenth most stressful event that you can experience. The stress can be negative (such as the loss of income when you leave your job, boredom, or not having a sense of purpose in life), or positive (such as having the freedom to explore new challenges, giving back to the community, or having the time to exercise or take up a new hobby). The choice is yours, but personally, I will focus on the positive and will search out people who are doing the same. I hope to interview some of these people so that we can all learn from them and what they are doing.
Rewire
The concept of retirement has changed dramatically in the past fifty years. Playing golf or taking a cruise are great, but I believe that the key to a happy and healthy retirement is continuing to grow and learn. It used to be thought that after a certain age our brains stopped growing or even began to shrink, but scientific research shows that this is a false concept. Our brains are capable of learning and growing no matter how old we are due to the process of neuroplasticity, or our ability to rewire our brains in response to our life experiences. I’m fascinated with this topic and will share the latest research and protocols to keep our brains healthy and sharp.
Inspire
Giving back to the community is another aspect of living a fulfilling retired lifestyle. Many who have retired within the past ten years are extremely fortunate because they have seen large increases in their stock portfolios, huge appreciation in their home values, and may have been grandfathered into a very beneficial guaranteed pension plan during their working years. Now we have both the time and resources to help others who may not be as fortunate. I’ll share my experiences in volunteer work as well as provide information for anyone who might want to get involved.
But, ultimately, I would like this blog to be about building a community of like-minded people who share ideas of how to have a truly inspired and inspiring retirement. I hope you join us!
Wayne – what a great idea! Thank you for the time and effort you put in to creating this space. I’ll be checking in regularly and look forward to contributing.
Thanks, Scott. I’m looking forward to your contributions. Also, I think you’ll like the Five for Friday newsletter – it will have 5 song playlists of music that I’m listening to – mostly 70’s stuff!
Hi Wayne. I think many people are lost when this retirement part of life hits. It seems we spend most of our working years trying to have enough money to retire but don’t spend much time planning the non-working years. Great idea!
Thanks, Kit. That was me – not really knowing what to do with myself once I retired.
This is great Wayne! I look forward to hearing your comments about giving back to the community.
I was glad to be retired this week to watch my grandkids while their daycare was closed for Covid. Being able to help my kids and grandkids has brought me great joy as a retiree.
Thanks, Jolene-
Your grandkids are so fortunate to have you and Bob as grandparents!
Great first step, Wayne! Looking forward to future posts. Retirement is so much more rewarding than a career due to choices versus commitments. Mine follow your 3-step process: life-long learning classes, creating new projects & volunteering.
Thank you, Anne.
I’d love to hear more about the new projects that you are creating!
Love this, Wayne! I will enjoy following your blog as we prepare for our retirement years. Thank you for such thoughtful input.
Thanks, Laura.
I think Brandt has a head-start on retirement by playing pickleball!
Thank you Wayne, although I am not yet retired, I will be in the not so distant future. As part of my vision, I want yo put in place all the things you talk about being so important to have a vibrant, energized retirement outside of time and money freedom.
So looking forward to reading more insights from others on how that can look.
Welcome, Nancy!
Thank you for this insight into your thoughts on transformation around retirement. I’m certainly in this arena as well!
Hi Maureen. I hope that you will share your journey as well!
I look forward to following your retirement journey. Jolene and I have found it quite positive so far.
Thanks, Bob. I look forward to hearing about your journey as well.
Hi bro-
I don’t know how I missed this, but am just now seeing it! Looking forward to reading it every month. Remember I teased you about wearing the black shirt to the Huntington Gardens on that hot day? It looks very good for your blog!
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.
Thank you!