Retirement From What—Your Career or Your Life?
Written by: Sushma Sharma and Pavita Singh
If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably retired, soon-to-be retired, or have parents who are retired.
Retirement is a huge milestone in one’s life after having contributed most of your adult years to taking care of your family and nurturing it with an income and all the love and protection you could muster and provide. Now that you are retired, perhaps you’re out on the golf course, spending time in your second home in the countryside, flying around country to country seeing all the museums and special sights, or spending more time with your grandkids. But maybe you’re worrying about your health and lack of an income and security, both of which everyone deserves. Whatever it is, talking to others like you and those who can genuinely learn from you is always helpful.
If you think you can make a slight effort to talk (such as sign-up and check out a website), then come explore Konversai—the world’s meeting place for people who want to talk to each other about something that is important to each of them. At Konversai, you will find someone you want to talk to, you will be able to seek them out, and you will be able to offer your knowledge to others. Once you are connected with a match, you communicate, schedule, and simply chat. It uses FaceTime and/or Skype and doesn’t require anything more than an internet connection and device with a camera for using either.
Konversai encourages you to charge for your time, and pay others for theirs. Most people who consider Konversai get hung up over the question of money. Some don’t want the ugliness of money, as they feel that it trivializes the exchange. Others believe they’re simply not motivated by money. With all due respect, these beliefs reflect heart-warming naiveté. We agree that money in and of itself is not interesting—it’s just digits on a screen. But it’s also a medium of serious exchange. When people do anything for free, it seems they are doing a favor and they don’t always bring the same humility and seriousness to the interaction that they do if money facilitates the exchange. Money transforms the exchange from a causal chat to a genuine serious interaction. If you have enough money saved up, you can charge for a serious exchange on Konversai and then donate your earnings to a charity.
As someone who’s dedicated your whole life to your career, maybe even multiple careers, you have undoubtedly accumulated a wealth of knowledge and skills over the years that could be of benefit to the next generation. People in other parts of the world are willing to pay you to impart this knowledge and these skills to them. If you spent your career building up a company, you can use Konversai to mentor the CEO of a new startup. If you were a math teacher, you can connect with struggling math students and help them with their homework or share some classroom tips and tricks with teachers-in-training. If you were a pediatrician, share some health and wellness recommendations with parents of young kids through Konversai. Or perhaps your career was in marketing but your true passion is painting. Konversai can help you pursue this passion. You can use Konversai to learn from and teach budding artists some skills, all while imparting life’s wisdom you’ve acquired.
Also, remember that learning is actually the best part of life. That’s why you travel and keep trying to improve how you look, your golf score, or whatever method you choose to measure improvement. A life that cannot be improved is not much of a life, as the journey has finished. Retirement is your opportunity to continue the journey and learn something brand new that you didn’t have time to explore during your career. We are all lifelong learners and it’s never too late to learn something new. If you’ve always wanted to learn photography, windsurfing, meditation, Indian dance, or Chinese—you name it—there’s someone on Konversai who knows these skills and is eagerly waiting to share them with you.
Come seek, provide, share, learn, and earn. Get on Konversai today and take the first step to enriching your own life and the lives of others. You won’t be sorry you did!
