FROM PREFACE OF BOOK:
Retirement can be the best time of our lives. Unfortunately, the first part of many people's lives is wasted on boring work and the last part is wasted on a boring retirement. The good news, however, is that many more people enjoy retirement than those who don't.

This book came about by accident. I was in the process of writing a new edition of The Joy of Not Working: A book for the Retired, Unemployed, and Overworked, as well as the original editon of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free when I thought about Bob Nelson's bestselling 1001 Ways books. I wondered why no other author had written a book on retirement similar in approach to Nelson's 1001 Ways to Reward Employees.

There and then, I decided that I would be the one to write it. First, the challenge was to generate 1001 ways how people could enhance their retirement. After about four weeks of working on this as a side project, I was convinced that creating 1001 ways was easily within my reach.

The second challenge was to provide interesting examples of retirees who are actually doing most of these things. This also ended up being a lot less difficult than I figured that it would be.

In fact, I came up with more good examples than I needed for a book of a reasonabe size. I have used the most interesting cases of people who are enjoying their retirement and what they are doing with their time. Some of the examples come from individuals who have written to me after reading The Joy of Not Working; others come from telephone and in-person interviews that I have conducted with retirees; and still others come from people who have been featured on websites or in newspaper stories.

Clearly, retirement can be a challenging life transition, either financially or personally. Many people have lots of time on their hands, but way too little money. Others have lots of money, but don't know what to do with their time. In this regard, Samuel Johnson declared, "Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use."

Regardless of your financial means, this book can help you enhance your retirement. Generally speaking, the key to a happy retirement is not to spend a lot more money. The key, instead, is to select enjoyable activities that allow you to get by on the money that you presently have. Indeed, several of the retirees cited in this book have below-average incomes. Nonetheless, they manage to fill their days with happiness and joy - much more than some people who are filthy rich.

If you are still working, but contemplating retirement, 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement will give you many ideas on what you can do once you leave the workplace and where to retire. In sidebars throughout the book you will find quotes relating to the topics on hand, thoughts from retirees about their experiences, and interesting research relating to retirement, such as that relating to the importance of having a few best friends and why money is important but not near as important as some peeople think. You will also encounter many advantages to being retired. These retirement advantages, in fact, may influence you to retire earlier than you had planned, particularly if you have always wanted to write and market a book market a book.

There are many Retirement Planning Issues to consider such as Top-10
Reasons to Retire Early, Where to Retire Happy, Retirement Jobs, Ideas for Retirement Parties, Retirement Wishes, Retirement Calculators, and Best Retirement Activities .

In the event that you are already well into your retirement and you are not finding it as challenging and fulfilling as you had anticipated, 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement may be just the inspiration you need to make retirement the best time of your life. If millions of other people can find out how to retire happy, so can you. Like them, however, you must be motivated, you must be creative, and you must have a positive view of retirement.

Note: L'Art de profiter de sa retraite is the French edition of Ernie Zelinski's book 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement, which will help you join the group of retirees who are satisfied and happy to be retired. 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement has not been published in English; it has been published by French publisher Editions d'Organisation as well as by Korean, and Spanish publishers.