A true story of retirement planning is that your future is riding on the quality of your assumptions. Humble_______can be dangerous.

For example, eight years into this bull market expecting stocks to deliver as—strong returns over the next decade is an uncertain proposition many are nonetheless_______.

Another potential_______assumption is that you will be able to keep working past 65. Yet the recently released 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that more than half of workers say they expect to still be on the clock past age 65. By_______, less than 15 percent of today’s retirees kept working that long.

“If you plan on working longer as a way to get by in retirement, you are going to be in trouble,” says Craig Copeland, senior research associate at EBRI. “It should be a complement to a solid savings and spending plan, not the_______.”

It’s simply too_______to assume you will indeed be able to work longer. A survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that nearly two-thirds of retirees left the workforce earlier than expected because they were laid off, reorganized out of a position, or due to general unhappiness with a job. Only 16 percent of retirees who_______the work force earlier than they expected did so because they felt they could_______afford to.

_______, a new report from Prudential puts a dollar value on why your current employer may not be inclined (倾向于) to do back flips to keep an older you happy and engaged. The estimated one-year cost to a firm when an employee________retirement: $50, 000.

Prudential estimates that on a company-wide level, delayed retirement can________overall workforce costs by 1 percent to 1.5 percent. That’s not nothing. And it goes a long way in explaining why employers may be more inclined to focus on “financial wellness” strategies to get workers ready to retire________than programs to help workers delay retirement.

Fewer than one-third of employees surveyed by TCRS report their employer has some sort of “transition” program such as flexible work schedules, reduced hours or________to a different role.

“Workers’ vision of retirement is changing faster than employers’ business________,” said Catherine Collinson, president of TCRS. That makes it ever more crucial for pre-retirees to take the steps today that will increase that________they can continue to work longer, if that’s part of the plan.

Recently a Russian friend came to visit me. It was one of her lifelong dreams to visit London. She arrive at lunchtime and we _______ a tiring afternoon going round the Tower of London. However, by 5 o'clock I couldn't help _______ that she didn't seem as enthusiastic as she had been earlier. I asked if _______was wrong and she said, “This is all very interesting but where is the _______ and where are the men in bowler hats (圆顶礼帽)? Why did everyone _______ to get on the bus at the bus stop instead of making a queue? It's very _______ from the books I've read about England.”

Her _______ made me think. It's true that people don't _______ much any more: nowadays you often find that everyone just jumps on the bus. Or maybe this is only in London. Also the idea of a man standing up and offering his _______ to a woman on a train or bus is ________ these days, although my father still does it!

Speaking of the pollution: well, we all know that a hundred years ago there used to be fog all year round in London, but we ________ have much fog; nowadays we have pollution from all the cars! Over the last few years in ________ London had been one of the hottest places in Europe, although we still get more than enough rain in the season.

What about the city men in their working “uniform”? Well, you can still see some city gentlemen in their smart ________, but men hardly ever ________ bowler hats. A few things don't ________, though. If you try to start a conversation with an English person on the underground in London, she or he will probably look at you as if you were mad!

Why working from anywhere isn’t realistic

For most white-collar workers, it used to be very simple. Home was the place you left to go to work. The office was almost certainly where you were_________. Co-working spaces were for entrepreneurial people in T-shirts who wanted to hang out with other entrepreneurial people in T-shirts. You could stay at a hotel on a work trip, but it was not a place to get actual work done, which is why a hotel’s “business centre”_________all of business as using a printer.

The pandemic has thrown these neat_________up into the air (打乱). Most obviously, home is now also a place of work. According to a recent Gallup survey, three-quarters of American workers whose jobs can be performed_________expect to spend time doing just that in the future. And offices are increasingly where you go to put the company into company – through collaborative work and social activities.

_________, the bravest version of remote working extends well beyond these two locations. “Working from anywhere” imagines a completely_________existence, in which people can do their jobs in Alaska or Zanzibar. The idea sounds wonderful. Nevertheless, plenty of_________remain. Some are practical. The payroll and tax of working from different locations in a year are an administrative headache._________, working from anywhere is only feasible if your equipment functions reliably. If you spill suntan lotion (防晒霜) on your laptop, the people on the hotel’s reception desk are more likely to offer you_________than a replacement computer.

Another set of obstacles is more__________. The carefree promise of working from anywhere is far easier to__________if you don’t have actual cares. Children of a certain age need to go to school; partners may not be able to work remotely and have careers of their own to manage.

The option to work from anywhere will be most attractive to people who have well-paid jobs and fewer__________: childless tech workers, say. For many other people, the “anywhere” in working from anywhere is a simple choice between their home and their office. That might be a tendency for__________within teams. Imagine dialing into an online call covered in baby drool (口水), and hearing your colleague Greg saying how amazing Chamonix (法国城市夏蒙尼) is at this time of year.

Adding it to the menu of working options for sought-after employees__________. The working-from-anywhere policy will probably help employers attract better people. But for the foreseeable future, working from anywhere will be a bonus for a lucky few rather than a(n)__________for things to come.