RECENTLY I WAS walking in town when I got the shock of my life. An elderly man who looked about 80 years old was staggering under the weight of a sack of waste. He looked like he was going to collapse before putting it on the truck. It was such a sorry scene to behold.

One woman sighed in surprise and pity at the sight of this man. She remarked: "Doesn’t this man have children to take care of him?” Then a certain man who was standing next to me shot in: "Surely, is it our children supposed to take care of us? I think we should be more responsible and plan for our own future.” 

This triggered a serious debate about retirement and how we should prepare for our life in old age. I didn’t participate in the debate, but I loved the ideas that were being thrown onto the table. In the end, this whole experience moved me to write this article on planning, especially for retirement. I hope you will be inspired to do what it takes to plan for the kind of life you want to live, not only after retirement, but also now.

Did this old man plan for this kind of life or age just caught up with him unawares? You will allow me use this article to poke any employed Rwandan above 50 who is reading this and hasn’t started preparing for retirement. For sure no one should wait to be reminded that it’s retirement time. It’s an honourable thing for one to retire before the law or age or an ailment forces him/her to do so. It’s important that even young people who are joining the world of work also begin thinking about the life they’ll wish to live in old age. 

Of course, it’s not only the future we need to plan for, but also the present. Planning is such an integral part of human existence that we can hardly achieve anything without doing it well. This calls for enhancing our research skills so that we can recall the past and also know what’s happening around us. We should be able to foresee the future and invest for it by sacrificing some luxuries of the present. It’s called postponing gratification. Planning also requires that we develop analytical and creative thinking abilities so that our approach to everyday life is problem-solving.

Another vital aspect of planning is the ability to set goals and objectives and also to lay down strategies to achieve them. After laying strategies, put in place mechanisms/tools to force/pressure you to do what you have committed yourself to do. They will cater for the aspect of time. Whenever you are planning anything, always fix a timeframe and give yourself deadlines to hit. 

As you plan, always remember that you are responsible for the consequences so do not base your plans on only hearsay or what others have advised you to do without deep thought; base the plan on what you are confident about. At the end of the day you cannot blame anybody if your plans go wrong. Make sure you plan right and do all it takes to make those plans bear fruit.

Robert Bake Tumuhaise is the MD, World of Inspiration & Founder of the Authors’ Forum in Uganda.