Stay at home versus retirement!
Retirement from a job or service takes on new COVID-19 significance if you had retired at the end of last year, like this writer. Retirement or retiring at 60 typically means you’ve had enough work and turmoil in offices and now deserve to relax at home, which basically translates to staying home. He doesn’t usually smell like a rat when he’s told to stay home; but when people around you start reacting to your unemployment situation, you realize that they react in the same way, quite abominable. They say, ‘so, you’re retired… now you’ll be sitting at home! Relax and enjoy!’ Now, you see the difference between staying at home and sitting at home, the latter being an ‘undervalued thing’. It really shocks you when some of your dear relatives and even your dearest spouse also react in a similar way. Particularly his/her spouse, who has been so used to you coming to the office every morning without fail that he/she may start to chafe or find fault forever with your sitting-at-home incarnation. He can continue with his normal activities as before, marketing, kitchen help and occasional outings; but the stigma of ‘sitting at home’ does not go away. There is a meaning why I am using the word ‘stigma’. Of course, my clever readers must have already guessed the ‘meaning’.
A little taken aback by the ‘stigma’ you might as well try to put up a good fight against: that you are a writer or a painter or a musician or a professional and that is how your work would continue or that you explain to them the beauty of the majestic saying ‘you only retire from a job, no of life and work.’ Unfortunately, neither of these would hold up with either person or spouse; because whatever the scenario, you will perform only from ‘sitting at home’.
Their nervousness is further affected by the general belief that retirees are mostly useless and worn out, and that no one is looking for them, except perhaps the life insurance companies. The combination of such ‘forces’ drives a retired soul to despair; they feel that they are unemployed again and unwanted, so they try to find new jobs or commitments. Some of them, fortunately, find opportunities and accept them with gratitude; not because they find them exciting and adorable, but just because of the overwhelming need to avoid ‘sitting at home’. However, they are very pleased with a discovery: experience, if not skills, is still valued by some in society.
The spread of the new coronavirus or the COVID-19 pandemic has somewhat blurred the distinction between ‘staying home’ and ‘sitting at home’, because suddenly everyone from the busiest professionals to the most grateful retirees around the world They have started to stay at home. , and most of them would contest the ‘sitting at home’ syndrome with the staunch defense of ‘working from home’ which, in a way, has been a great relief to retired workers. His stigma becomes negative for a disease that was also considered a stigma; that particular word was eventually neutralized in both cases.
The greatest crisis of humanity has taught us the meaning and beauty of ‘home’: where you are always safe and happy, and from where you can work as well, or perhaps even better than from offices thanks to the state of things. state-of-the-art connectivity and the integration of the entire world into a single cohesive unit. More changes in the way we behave or think are likely to come by the time the crisis finally breaks, perhaps in the coming months or years. For now, people over the age of 60 are specifically advised to stay home, regardless of whether they sit there or work from there. Conclude with a disclaimer: There has been no generalization of the retirees referred to here.