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Here is another testament to the power of belief, choice. Everyday, in our every action we are faced with a choice. And knowingly or unknowingly (mostly unknowingly as we choose not to know) we choose. One of such choices we are faced with every day, in every situation is whether we are going to be happy or unhappy. But do we take responsibility.

No, no, noooooooooo…

“Everything was going great until he did this, she did that to me…” blah blah blah…

Stop for a second, take a deep breath and…

Listen to Abraham Lincoln’s wise words below and pay heed…

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be”
- Abraham Lincoln

The little known wonder is that when we choose to be happy, live and work happily, our results are way better, our satisfaction level is way higher, people want to be around us, our relationships are enriched.

But we rarely notice this difference.

Because…

You know, we are tooooooo BUSY. Doing what?

Doing the same old thing, spinning the same old wheel that has always made us unhappy.

Thus we choose to be unhappy.

Let’s commit to be nice, to be courteous others and to be happy within ourselves, come what may. Let’s make our days memorable for ourselves and those around us.

So which is it? Is it a Silver Tsunami of retirement of Baby Boomers OR is it just a wave? Well, The recent report on BusinessWeekOnline attempts to address this question and tries to bust the myth supposedly common among many.

Did you know that even after the youngest Boomer reaches retirement age, the total number of Boomers retiring would not be 78 million, but more like a 46 million when adjusted for people that never worked and other factors? 

Read the article (watch the video interview) on BusinessWeek Online.

There have been numerous mentions, analyses of this interview in the blogosphere. I will only reference just a couple here.

The ‘50 + Digital’ posted the following in their blog. In this blog, Mark correctly points out that the real issue is not who is retired or not (although this is the real issue for those businesses spending big time banking on the upcoming wave of retirees), but it is the impending aging and the resulting health and other issues that eventually crop up.

Also, part of the reason many aren’t retiring is because of the lack of savings in their retirement accounts. One can not afford to retire on a $50,000 or $70,000 balance in their retirement accounts, unless they can count on a nice pension check or some other source of income. Believe it or not, this will affect the Gen X generation even more so than the Baby Boomers. But many years from now. This is so because, by the time Gen X’ers retire, pensions would have more or less disappeared and they can’t really count on Social Security benefits. So they have to basically pay for their retirement from their own savings. And as we all know, as Americans our saving habits are not very impressive. So one choice to afford the extended years of living is to not retire.

My dear friend and Boomer411 co-founder, Raj Setty has this great blog post on this subject. Regardless of how close or far you are from retiring, answering these questions that Raj asks in his blog can work as a checkpoint for your retirement preparedness…

1. When do you plan to retire?

2. How much money should you have to make this dream a reality?

3. How much money should you earn this year to reach the goal outlined in #2?

It takes some financial discipline to reasonably answer question #2 above. It helps to know how much you are spending on a monthly basis and which of these expenses you expect will continue into your retirement. Also, it is important to note that upon retirement one has more time to spare and might want to travel around or get involved in some other activities. Each of these cost a lot of money and these expenses need to be planned as well. Not to mention that the cost of healthcare increases drastically with one’s age. So take a deep breath and face up the facts. May be you are well prepared or may be you are not. But this is your life. So wouldn’t you rather make a well-educated move than a hasty one?

For more on this subject, read our interview with Catherine Kitcho, author of the book, ‘Happy About Being a Baby Boomer: Facing Our Newfound Longevity’. You might want to buy her book for more help on figuring out how much money do you really need to retire and live well.