I have heard and seen so many people getting sick and depressed after retirement from work.What could be the reason? On the face of it it seems that a person who had been working for many years in a particular setting when suddenly made to leave that job / work feels an emptiness, a lack of worth, boredom etc.

Normally when a person (not only after retirement but otherwise also) is required to be alone, isolated or without any work even for a few minutes he starts feeling disturbed, as if something is missing; an emptiness is felt. He starts craving for something to do!

On a deeper analysis of this situation, the reason for this feeling of discomfort is that when we are left alone and do not have anything to do we get to meet someone whom we either don’t like or don’t know; and that someone is our own Self! We run away from ourselves. We don’t like our own company. Mobile phone, T.V., Laptop, Ipad, Magazine, anything would do but not my own self!

I have seen even mothers getting depressed or disturbed due to the simple fact that their children now don’t need them anymore for day-to-day work like home works, lunches and dinners etc. They sort of feel sorry that their children are now grown up and don’t need them anymore! But it is just that the mother never tried to know herself. She doesn’t know herself. She knows only her husband and her children!

I know many people (having their own business) who keep on working even after 60-65 years of age not because they like to work (actually they hate it) but because they feel that they won’t be having anything to do after they get retired from work. What would they do? Look at the face of their nagging wife the whole day sitting at home?! That’s unfortunate. They simply are waiting for death to come and end all that.

Such situations give a glimpse of what we could face after our retirement from mainstream work in the old age.

There is only one solution to this problem. And that’s Meditation. Meditation helps one to know himself, to be friends with one’s own self. Facebook, Watsapp and platforms like that are stuffed with nice talks and gestures. But not even an iota of change is seen in the world. Only we could become that change we desire and that can happen when we get to know our own silent, beautiful Self; and meditation is the only way devised for man (and only for man) to do that!