If you are nearing retirement (55 – 65 years of age), you are probably aware that you will have approximately another 30 years to live.  That’s half of your current lifetime still left to go.  As much as you relish the prospect of having time for an extra cup of coffee on the terrace each morning, puttering in the garden, being able to warm up properly for a game of golf or tennis, and having an afternoon siesta when you feel like it, those activities are not substantial enough to keep you vigorous and alert for 30 years.  You will need something more in your life.

In the Lake Chapala area there are a multitude of organizations, charities, businesses and special events that you can choose as an outlet for your technical, organizational and interpersonal skills and for your ideas and energy.

Whatever dreams you have had to postpone in order to keep the wolf from the door in your middle years, you can now express.  There is an active amateur theatre group, three English publications constantly in search of poets and writers, a garden club, a bridge society, a theater, animal care group, several churches, a choir, music societies, several bands, and an agricultural education group. People take up art, photography, computer animation and countless other avocations.  Virtually every foreign nationality has its own club, and there are local chapters of most of the service clubs from up north, including an American Legion post and a Navy League council.  The charitable organizations include orphanages, homes for the elderly, educational aid, assistance to disabled children, the Red Cross, a school for the deaf, and many more.  Annually there is an International Chili Cook-Off with proceeds going to charity, a fashion show to benefit the Red Cross, and bazaars and fund raisers for all of the other charities.

For those who enjoy business and can’t turn off all their ideas for new products or services, there are very few restrictions to doing business in Mexico. See our paper on Working and Doing Business in Mexico for the formal requirements. Currently in the Lake Chapala Area expatriates are involved in hotels, galleries, restaurants, publishing, real estate, law, auto repair, farming, transportation, fitness centers, medicine, dentistry, furniture retailing, construction and renovation, food service and catering and much more.

We have award winning writers, artists and photographers living at Lakeside. People with skills and experience in a multitude of industries are available for consultation and advice. Local resources in financing, law, accounting, engineering, public relations and many other fields are of a very high caliber.

The biggest problem may be to decide which and how many of these opportunities you want to take advantage of.  Boredom should not be the problem.