I would never have thought that someday I would be financially well off enough to retire. Why you ask? Except for the first company, Eli Lilly, where I was employed for 9 years, I never worked for another company more than 3 years as a result of mergers, acquisitions, and desire to move up the corporate ladder. Therefore, there was never a pension or some distribution I could rely on for retirement.

As a result of one of the transactions where the company was sold, all my stock options vested and therefore Voila. All of a sudden I could retire.

Now, in my late 70’s I can live the dream and am doing so without regard to financial limitations.  It is an exhilarating feeling.

I purchased a home here in Fort Myers for the winter months, took up sailing, play on a tennis team, play music, swim almost daily, cycle 40 miles at a clip, travel, and now participate in the Pelican writer’s club.  Furthermore, my health is excellent.

Never do I take this situation for granted.  Everyday without fail I am thankful and appreciative of the ability to do what I want, when I want. 

 My greatest fear in life is actually identity theft or a scam that will completely wipe me out.  Almost every week, I manage to get myself in trouble for clicking on something on the computer that puts my entire life in jeopardy requiring me to change credit cards and passwords.  For example, a couple of days ago I tried printing a document, and the printer was off line and could not get it to work.  Somehow at this very moment a pop up arose from a HP offering to help.  Stupidly, I called the number on the computer, they screen shared and wanted to charge me $ 300 for cleaning up computer.  They showed me on the screen that I had a Trojan virus that I got from the network. At this point I realized that generally Mac computers do not  get these viruses, I disconnected the call.  My son-in-law who is much more commuter savvy than I, told me not to turn on my computer, go to Apple right a way, change all my pass codes and so on. He created a sense of urgency in my life and turned my whole life around in seconds. Now I was fearful that my greatest fear had been realized.  After going to the genius bar and being able to be seen that evening, I was assured, by Apple, all was OK.  Although my son-in-law did not believe it and convinced me to purchase Life Lock.  

It’s an awful thought to imagine, you wake up one morning and your bank account is empty.  I did have some fraudulent activity on my credit cards before this event and as a result I am getting all new cards.

Still if people hack into your life, steal your identity, or steal your data from your computer, there is no easy fix and maybe no fix at all. I do not profess to have an answer, but I will be much much more careful and diligent with what I click on and what folks can screen share with me.

This event did ruin a beautiful Saturday evening and perhaps provided a wake up call.

Shel