Dear friends. There's a new narrative around retirement. It's no longer about putting your feet up and going on cruises, with a little babysitting and gardening.
Increasing amounts of research tells us that to stave off dementia we need to continue to exercise our brain as well as maintaining a good level of fitness to take us beyond the golden period of ages 60 to 72.
I've just read a new book, The Age Rebellion by Lydnsey Simpson. She describes the post-working years as our second act.
Simpson, the Global CEO of 55/Redefined, says there's no reason why we shouldn't start or own business or switch to an entirely different career as we get older. We may have decades in front of us if we set an arbitrary retirement date. Retirement is no longer the end point.
One of the myths Simpson endeavours to destroy is "It's not about the money." Many people base the timing of their retirement on having accumulated a large enough pension pot or sufficient savings to be able to stop working. She says: "The retirement rainbow is real and, in my experience, the rainbow always has an end as we need more in our lives than just money."
Simpson believes that when we remove the pillar of work from our lives, we see a domino effect of impact on our health and wellbeing. An Austrian study estimated that for men, retiring one year early causes a 5.5 per cent increase in the risk of premature death and reduces the age at death by 2.2 months.
The Retirement Dream - and Reality
Simpson, herself retired, was called back into service to take on a project where she re-hired people who had worked in the 1990s but were now retired. It was to help a bank with a research challenge.
She says that two years on, most of the people who were re-hired told her that retirement was a trap, not the dream. For many it had actually been the worst decision of their lives.
For the first six months they did what we're all sold: the lie-ins, the holidays, doing anything they fancied. Newly retired people often get stuck into a bucket list of action. Then, during the second six months, post-retirement kicks in. Boredom starts to creep in, and the reality of filling possibly decades without work or a purposeful endeavour can start to weigh heavy.
After 18 months you may miss being needed by others. You're missing the routines of work.
If any of this speaks to you, Simpson has plenty of advice on how to redefine our expectations. This includes rethinking what truly makes us happy and compiling a list, plus an Age Rebellion vision and action plan.
She provides several examples of people who are newly fulfilled after returning to work or starting a new career. The positive message is that we are living longer so we have more time, and using the time productively makes us happier. It doesn't have to be paid employment. Volunteering is also a great way to fire our synapses and make us feel useful.
Where Our Views Differ Slightly....
If we retire without a plan for how to use our time, then yes, we are likely to be among those who regret retiring.
For many of the Boomer generation, our working lives have been very hard. We all had Saturday jobs at 16 and very few of us had gap years. We either went straight into work or a low number (around 30%) went to university.
If you worked in certain sectors life was brutal. I speak as a veteran of 25 years in semiconductors, 20 at an American company. Crushing goals were set every year as we were exhorted to "raise the bar," even at times when we had lost budget and employees, making it near impossible to achieve the goals. Resilience was essential when the managing director/CEO decided to maul someone in a meeting, sometimes as a sport, it seemed, or even throw something at them.
Ageism is Real
It isn't easy to switch careers once you're in our 50s and beyond. Ageism is unfortunately endemic, the only "ism" that HR is not all over.
Sometimes I dread telling people I'm retired because we are all subconsciously programmed by ageism to have certain assumptions.
My Own Story
I was made redundant after 20 years at the company I loved. I wasn't ready to retire at that time. I experienced some horrifying ageism in a couple of interviews but eventually got a good role at a competitor to my old company. My colleagues were almost entirely in their 20s and early 30s but generally they were inclusive and fun. There were a couple of people who didn't like having to work with someone the age of their mother and they treated me poorly. But, as I said earlier, I'm pretty resilient and didn't crumble.
When redundancies were on the table I was happy to put myself forward. I'd spent 4.5 years there and I considered myself 'done.' I was fortunate to have a private pension which meant I could retire there and then, at 61. The state pension does not start until I am 67.
I have always been a very busy and active person. When I was working, and travelling a lot internationally, I managed to create two posts a week on this blog and promote them on social channels, getting quoted occasionally as an "expert" on older women's style and thinking. In addition I did a lot of gardening, kept fit with walking 2,000 miles a year plus weights and Pilates, and enjoyed all the culture London brings.
Retirement saw me adding more to the mix. Tasks which would keep my cognitive ability up to speed, including book reviewing, which requires a lot of process and good memory; going on my first Courtauld Institute study tour, and refreshing my French with Babbel. I go to a least one art exhibition or museum a month.
To have a hobby to share with my husband, I took up cycling for the first time aged 62, and we did our first 1000 mile across the UK, Land's End to John O'Groats, the following year. We're actually doing it again now, as you read this......
Sure, we have a few holidays a year, but they are typically cycling holidays, exploring new places, with 10 days down time in Greece. I enjoy organising events and managed to find more than 70 alumni from school to attend a reunion, which was challenging because many were not on social media. I also organise trips for a group of women where we go to fashion and art exhibitions.
I'm not bored yet, after four years retired. Next year will see me take on different challenges. I don't think I'm particularly unique in this, looking at many of my peers. The Boomers enjoy better health than previous generations and we were always people who made things happen.
I definitely applaud Lyndsey Simpson for the idea that there should be more to our "second act" than waiting to die. It's particularly relevant to many men, in my view, because those who were alphas at work seem to struggle in retirement. Their job was their sole identity. I see them at gatherings, hardly speaking to anyone. They haven't kept in touch with friends and don't have much in common with their partners who are suddenly social butterflies.
My friends, I always remember the words "Nobody on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time at the office," - politician Paul Tsongas.
What do you think? I'd love to hear from you in the comments if you agree that you retired too soon, and how you've tackled it, as well as those who are living your best life in retirement.
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