Don’t retire, ReFire: The value of perserverance

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times In this last year, we all have had to dig deep and plug along an unknown, winding road with no apparent end in sight. Now that the end is in sight, we are still dealing with the slow process of getting to the finish line, almost feeling like we’re walking in quicksand, as we attempt to set up an appoint to be vaccinated! We’re tired. The problem with...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: Words matter

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times I am compelled to go deeper into the importance of words, which I touched upon in the previous month. It’s a subject that has been in the forefront of our current events for quite some time. Interestingly enough, it has been the topic of many conversations I’ve had with my grandchildren, not sparked by the media but, instead, from a page of a book of...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: ReFirement at Any Age!

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times Four and a half years ago, when I started writing articles, my focus was on offering different perspectives to facing retirement and the questions that arise. As the months and years passed, and the articles continued, it became clear that what I was sharing had a more universal message that spanned the ages. While a sixteen year old isn’t thinking about...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: As we close the book on 2020

By Gail Suplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times Here we are, nearing the end of the year but not just any year. This is a year that will truly be memorialized in the history books. It’s certainly like no other I’ve ever seen in my six plus decades of living. It’s particularly notable for a young person, like my thirteen year old grandson, to be living through and being very much aware of and affected...

Don’t Retire, Refire: Waiting to exhale

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times November is the month to celebrate Thanksgiving. I usually focus on the holiday but this year, there’s an added perspective to ruminate on. Reaching for thanks and gratitude in the midst of this stormy year has been challenging and at times, arduous. Weariness has come over many of us as we navigate through COVID-19, an unusual number of devastating hurricanes...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: A season of change

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times As the light of the day gets shorter and the air brings a chill, we think of the change in the season, something we anticipate, prepare for and expect, without fail. However, we are entering an extraordinarily different kind of season, which will wrap up an extraordinarily different year. It’s the season of change. In this change, I am not talking about...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: Entering the last quarter of a crazy year!

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times I think we can all agree that it has been a strange and unusual year and dawn of a new decade. The question on our minds is, are all these extreme events the birth of good change or the continuation of more unsettledness of what’s to come? In many ways the year has flown, yet at the same time, I describe the months as moving in slow motion. Whether the...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: Quarantine, a taste of retirement

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times It has been 11 weeks since most of us have been under Pennsylvania’s Stay Home ordinance. How have you been spending your time? Many of my clients, who are not yet retired and, quite frankly, fearful of how it will be when they stop working, are getting a taste of what retirement will look like. The first, and most important, challenge we were faced with...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: Pivoting to cope with changing times

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times No matter what age we are, there comes a time in our lives, or many times in our lives, when we must take stock of where we’ve been, where we are now and where we want to go. We currently have the gift of time to ponder such introspection. It is essential to take stock of our lives and ask those questions in order to assess and reevaluate if we’re on...

Don’t Retire, ReFire: What a difference a month makes

By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times My last article was about “going into the desert”, figuratively speaking, to realign myself and focus on guarding and protecting from the distractions that were and still are affecting who I truly am, the “Real Me”. That meant disconnecting myself from what was making my heart heavy. It meant to still my mind and to reconnect with myself and my God...