2 What Is Retirement?
Dana didn’t have much hope for her retirement. And sure enough, she quickly found plenty of evidence that it wasn’t going to be much. Immediately, Dana missed her friends at work. She had hoped that they would stay in touch, and she could see that they tried, but it just didn’t really work. Dana also missed her paychecks. Money was just as tight as she expected, perhaps more so. And Dana could already feel her own decline. She just wasn’t as bright and energetic. Yet something told Dana that she had the wrong view of retirement. If she could just get her mind right, retirement might not be as bad as she’d expected.
Definition
Retirement can mean several things. The definition you give it may mean more than you think. Retirement can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think of your retirement in one way, and it may become much like that. But think of your retirement in another way, and it may become much like that way instead. You may, for instance, see retirement as an adventure, as your time to finally try some of the wild and crazy things that you’ve always wanted to do. Then, you’ll probably make an adventure out of your retirement. But if, instead, you see retirement as the end of the line, as lost years of inevitable disease and decline, well, then you’ll probably find enough evidence of it to wallow in your misery. You can, in other words, give retirement the definition you wish and, by doing so, affect how you experience it. Thus, give some thought to how you wish to define retirement. You may want to give it a definition that makes more sense. Don’t look at retirement through rose-colored glasses, but at least give it a chance.
Cessation
The precise or technical definition of retirement involves cessation from work. One retires when one leaves one’s long-time employment without taking up other full-time work. Think of retiring, and you think first of the workplace retirement party and maybe the proverbial (if not the actual) gold watch. And that definition is a good place to start. You should think of retirement as concluding your devotion and commitment to full-time employment. At some point, you’ve got to let it go. In retirement, don’t try hanging on to your attitude, status, reputation, and identity as a career professional. You may want to do so, for all that those accessories offered you. But others who know that you’re retired won’t generally let you do so. They know better. They may still recognize your experience. They may even ask you for an opinion or favor or two. But they don’t have to recognize your authority, schedule, and role anymore because those are the things that you’ve just given up by retiring. And you’re better off if you let it go. It can be a bigger adjustment than you expect, but be ready to take on a new persona as a retired whatever, no longer afforded so many privileges by what you used to do.
Loss
Stopping work, and losing not only the earned income but also the status, authority, role, reputation, structure, and activity, can feel like a loss. Recognize and respect those feelings of loss. By retiring, you do lose things, more things than you may at first realize. Countenancing that loss is why retirement parties can actually help. Many of us don’t want any fuss, whether over birthdays, anniversaries, or retirement. But in the instance of retirement, put up with a little fuss. Take the party if anyone offers it. Some acknowledgment and even celebration around your retirement can help you bear up under the loss. You may think of the celebration party a little more and the losses a little less. But in any case, soon enough adjust. Try to see your new retired status as a good thing, not as a loss. Turn quickly from that feeling of loss, of looking back to what you no longer have, to looking forward to what you now have, which is a life without full-time employment soaking up ninety percent of your time, energy, interest, and identity.
Continuation
That said, many retirees continue some form of work or employment. You don’t have to see retirement as the cessation of all work. Indeed, you may soften the financial or other blow of retirement with some part-time work that preserves the better part of your old work world. Some professions, like the judicial bench and the academy, offer senior status or its equivalent to retirees. Senior status basically means that you get to keep the title and may receive a call to help out now and then, on a case, with a course, or on a project or two, or to fill in for a day or two. Retired teachers may substitute, and retired lawyers may mediate. Some retirees don’t entirely retire but instead just cut way back, from full time to part time or intermittent work. Retired accountants may give up all their clients except their biggest, easiest, or closest ones. Retired police officers may come back to work the fair, parade, or carnival. Retired contractors may still take on a small job or two. And retired business owners may consult for the new owners who took over. Whatever your profession, trade, or field, you may not have to conceive of retirement as an entire break. You may instead be able to treat retirement as significantly reducing your work.
Relief
Retirement should, though, involve substantial if not entire relief from work’s stresses. You’re not retired if you’re not getting that relief. If whatever work or employment that you may decide to continue in retirement is still occupying most of your time and energy, and taking priority over other activities that would have been a relief from work, then you’re not yet retired. You don’t have to retire. You may continue to work. But if you decide to retire and assure your family members and friends that you are retiring, then you should be defining your retirement as involving relaxation and rest from work. Don’t fool yourself, and don’t try fooling your family members or friends. Either continue to work, or retire, even if you retain a little work that does not interfere with your retirement priority, which is to relax and rest from work. You may be just as active in retirement as you were when still at full-time work. But your retirement activity should be of a different sort than your work activity, with lower demands and less stress. In that respect, related to relief from work stress, you’re either retired or you’re not.
Adventure
Retirement, though, need not take its definition solely or primarily from its relationship to work. Retirement can mean the commitment to enjoy life by prioritizing adventure and exploration over any work commitments. Retirement may be more a matter of your mindset than your work hours or commitments. Indeed, with retirement, your work hours may not change much at all, if instead you simply prioritize retirement activities over work. Retirement may mean that work becomes optional and secondary to travel plans, bucket lists, or a move to a warmer climate or other special or even exotic place that you’re no longer willing to put off. Retirement may simply mean forget work, let’s enjoy life, even if work remains a subsidiary part of life. Plenty of individuals live a free and fulfilled life of exactly their preference and choosing, wherever and however they choose to live, in a lifestyle that looks fully retired, but in which they continue to carry out some income-producing work. If this retirement definition, making adventure and exploration your priority, sounds like a good fit, then pursue it. You may find it guiding you to your best retirement.
Growth
Retirement thus doesn’t have to be negative in its connotation, even though the word retire has a naturally negative meaning, to withdraw, give up, and back out or back off. Retirement can instead mean having the time and making the effort to try new things, learn new things, and be newly creative. We tend, when working, to carefully husband our time, attention, and strength. We may have all kinds of interests, like hobbies, arts, or recreations in which we would like to engage. We might want to read, study, paint, sculpt, cook, shop, act, dance, sing, or play an instrument. Yet we only have so many hours in a day and so much energy to spend, most of which we must save for work. Retirement can mean releasing that time and energy for whatever new studies, leisure, arts, recreation, or other activity we wish to explore for our own expression and growth. We may not generally think of them that way, but retirement years can be spectacular years of growth. One of the healthiest, brightest, and most encouraging ways to conceive of retirement is the time in which you pursue your greatest growth. After all, by the time you retire, you know yourself well enough to know your capacities and interests that you might best pursue.
Maintenance
So, retirement means relief from full-time work and may, on the positive side, mean a time for growth and adventure. Retirement, though, also generally carries a connotation of maintenance. Retirement implies moving out of whatever generative dynamic a full-time work life provided and into a sort of steady state. Retirement brings that moment where an individual goes from building a financial nest egg to maintaining and depleting it. Retirement also signals that moment when one’s strength and vitality is clearly no longer growing and is instead very likely declining. Indeed, declining health and vigor may have brought on or hastened retirement. Retirement thus naturally means maintaining or trying to maintain both finances and health, against whatever drains and crises may attack them. Retirement is thus, in a sense, like moving from playing offense to playing defense, from trying to gain and amass to trying to defend and preserve. The same can be true not just for finances and health but also for family and friend relationships, for one’s sense of community, and for one’s independence. Don’t see your retirement as if fighting a losing battle. It doesn’t have to be that way. Your finances, health, relationships, and sense of community may all improve in retirement. But recognize the need to pay attention to maintenance.
Decline
Much as retirement naturally implies maintaining more so than gaining, retirement can also naturally imply a time of decline, particularly in strength, health, and vigor. If you retire, say, sometime during your sixties, then of course you should expect your seventies and eighties to involve a decline in strength and vigor. That decline is not necessarily even a bad thing, especially if your exercise, diet, nutrition, and other habits can slow and pace or steady the decline. Grow old with grace. Let the young and strong do the hard work. Yet recognizing retirement as a period of probable decline, if only gradual, can be an important step toward proper planning and preparation to navigate retirement gracefully. For a specific example, you might not wisely downsize from a one-level ranch home to a walk-up apartment, given the health issues that the elderly can have that might make it difficult or impossible to manage multiple flights of stairs. Anticipate gradual decline in retirement, and you’ll likely do better at navigating its greater difficulties.
Dependence
Retirement can also mean a time of decreasing independence and increasing dependence. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing to see retirement in that way. Knowing that you’re likely to need the help of others can help you plan for that help, easing any crisis when the need finally arrives with its sudden demands. Depending on others can bring a time of care and even intimacy, particularly if you are caring for your spouse, your spouse is caring for you, or your adult children or other relatives are providing some or most of the care. Depending on Social Security for income and Medicare for health insurance relieves one of the burden of those obligations. Planning can especially help, though, with respect to assisted living or nursing care, both from a cost and access standpoint. Affording nursing care may require securing insurance for it, spending down assets, or qualifying for Medicare. Getting into a preferred nursing facility may require investigating services and getting on waiting lists. These steps may seem daunting and even depressing, but again, dependence doesn’t have to mean destitution, deprivation, or depression, especially when you see retirement as naturally involving dependence and thus make plans for it.
Family
You can also define retirement as a time for family. Thinking of retirement as a time of growing closer to family is quite accurate and appropriate, and can be quite heartening. When you retire, you naturally spend more time at home, where you can care more for your spouse and any other family household residents, and they can care more for you. As just indicated above, retirement years can also bring dependence on family care. Yet retirement years are also the time when you have the time, means, and reason to address your family legacy. You should have a will in which you provide for heirs and may find that making significant family gifts is appropriate. See the discussion of these issues later in this guide, and see greater detail in the guide Help with Your Legacy. Defining your retirement as a time of drawing closer to family can be the most positive and reassuring way of looking at retirement. It can also be a wise way to plan for retirement.
Demise
Retirement is also a natural prelude to the final act of life, involving one’s demise and passing into the great beyond. Seeing retirement in that way isn’t necessarily to be unduly morbid. The opposite may be true, that you’ll make more of your retirement years, and perceive greater assurance in them, by anticipating and planning for your demise. Ignoring something big just encourages it to loom over you and affect you in negative ways that it need not do so. Don’t be unwise and irresponsible about your demise. Instead, do the things that you should to make your final act the victory that it can and should be. Not only will you appreciate the steps that you take and the assurance that they give you, but your family will appreciate that you’ve taken those steps, too. See the chapter in this guide on that subject, and refer for greater detail to the guide Help with Your Demise.
Reflection
How do you define retirement? Would you say that you see retirement more in a negative light or in a positive light? What can you adjust to view retirement more positively? Would you say that you see retirement more in an imaginary light or more in a realistic light? What do you need to adjust to view retirement more realistically? Do you plan to stop all work or only most work at retirement? If you continue some work at retirement, can you give retirement activities priority over that part-time work, or will that part-time work inevitably take priority over retirement? If the latter, do you think that continuing part-time priority work is wise? Will doing so undermine your reasons for retiring and goals in retirement? What losses do you fear most from retiring? What gains do you anticipate most from retiring? What are the biggest adventures you want to pursue? What creative or expressive activities do you most want to try? What studies or growth do you hope to pursue? Do you anticipate difficulty maintaining your health or finances in retirement? How do you foresee the course of your physical and mental decline going over the course of your retirement? Can you make lifestyle changes now to slow and steady that natural decline? Do you expect to become more dependent on others? If so, on whom do you expect to depend? Do you expect to care more for dependent others? Do you look forward to retirement as a time of growing closer to family?
Key Points
You have different ways to define retirement, affecting your view of it.
At its basic level, retirement involves ceasing full-time employment.
While you may stop working full time, you may continue some work.
Retirement is naturally a time of losing income, status, and structure.
Retirement is also a time of relief from the hours and stress of work.
Defining retirement as a time for bucket-list adventures can help.
Defining retirement as a time to focus on personal growth also helps.
Seeing retirement as a time to maintain health and finances also helps.
Recognizing that retirement years bring natural health decline helps.
Seeing retirement years as involving increasing dependence also helps.
See retirement years primarily as a time of growing closer to family.
Admitting that retirement years are a prelude to one’s final act helps.