Retire and exercise

I've been reading and scanning a book called How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.  No I'm not old enough to retire but life transitions can be difficult and stressful even when they're planned so I want to be prepared.  Think about the stress of buying your first house, having your first baby, and getting a new job.  These life events are full of promise but are some of life's top stressors nonetheless.

I thought I'd take the bull by the horns and see what I could do to make the transition to not working (yippee) easier and more successful.  Firstly, the amount of money one has accrued is not the single most important part of being happily not working.  In fact, according to the book, you need much less money than you think you do, so retire ASAP.  The author says you need to do something meaningful, have a good circle of friends and exercise. I can agree with all of that. He advocates planning between one and two hours a day of vigorous exercise.  That will give structure to your days, keep you slim, and ensure good health.  He goes on to give examples of people in their nineties who are still vigorous and active.

And by vigorous exercise he means things like running and swimming.  No walking around the neighborhood with Fido or soothing yoga practice.  You've got to get out there and run for an hour! Well really, I'm all for exercise (especially if someone else is doing it)  but like many authors giving advice on how to live well, he spends a huge amount of time on exercise. I know it's important but the reality is it won't get you out of this life alive.  You can exercise for hours every day and the end will still find you.

In our society, we don't do death. Death is an aberration, the result of bad habits or crime or bad luck. There are books upon books and celebrity doctors galore giving us advice on what to eat, what to think (positive attitude), and how much exercise we need.  They seem to be saying, "If you just follow our advice you can live forever."  I have news for them no matter how perfectly you treat your body and how positive your outlook you are still going to die.  In fact you might even get a serious illness like cancer.  Broccoli and exercise won't cure or prevent serious illness. Even scarier for some,  recent studies have found no link between having a positive attitude and cancer outcomes.  In other words you can be the most  positive, sunny person in the world and the big C can still get you.  On the flip side you can be a depressed pessimist and still recover from cancer.  That makes me feel much better because I'm naturally a "glass half empty" kind of person and have been all my life.  I hate to think that I'd succumb to a disease simply because of how I'm wired.

What does all this talk of exercise and death have to do with retirement? Maybe nothing but maybe I don't want to spend so much of my retirement chasing the impossible dream of eternal life.  I do of course want to be healthy until I drop dead, preferably in the middle of a good book. Life is certainly more fun when you're healthy and vigorous. But structuring my non-working days around EXERCISE sounds suspiciously like A JOB.  Having flexible time will be the greatest part of retiring, I'm not going to mess it up with a strict exercise routine.  I'm done with routine, give me spontaneous and I might even see the glass as half full.