I recently saw a Tedx talk (link) which did a good job of discussing the phases of retirement. Still, some things bothered me, since some of the language (e.g., “squeezing all the juice out of retirement”) seemed to convey the exactly wrong sentiment in my opinion. So I decided to gather my own thoughts and write about it, as that’s what bloggers do. I’m not exactly an expert on retirement, but I do have some credentials, which I’ll cover as we go. So far we (important change of subject pronoun there!) have faced none of the financial or existential challenges which are so common among retirees. So we got that going for us. . . which is nice.
Before we dig in, may I take a moment to point out just how weird the concept of retirement is? For all of human history, people worked and raised families until they were too old or infirm to do so, then they died. The rich never needed to work, so they found ways to spend their leisure, and eventually they died, too. But nobody “retired.” Rome gave its soldiers a pension, but that was because having poor-men-with-combat-experience-lying-about is bad public policy. Otto von Bismark introduced the modern concept of retirement in the 19th century by forcing Germans over the age of seventy to quit and accept a government payment. Even as late as FDR’s successful enactment of social security in the States, many people of retirement age were opposed to the idea of having to stop working! Population growth, the industrial revolution, and the rise of the middle class all combined to popularize what we now call retirement. So it’s fairly recent and not at all surprising humanity hasn’t quite mastered the concept!
So what is retirement? In its simplest form, it is a period of life in the absence of work. To differentiate it from other times without work (i.e., unemployment), I would add “the need to” before work. Pretty simple, but you would be amazed at the number of people who fail to get this definition. I think here of friends who talk about their “retirement job,” “part-time retirement,” “semi-retired,” or “retired except for. . .”. Nope, not retired, that’s all. Not that there’s anything wrong with continuing to work, or working less hours, or working with less stress: all great concepts, and rightly to be praised. Just not retirement.
Notice that in the definition I have proposed (a period of life in the absence of the need to work) need does not necessarily denote resources. Need can be financial (e.g., I have to keep working to pay off my mortgage) but it can also be purposeful (I have to keep working because I’m the boss, that’s who I am), or evasive (I have to keep working because I don’t know what I would do with myself), or well anything. Need just represents the “what” which comes after “I have to keep working because . . .”
So the person who takes on huge responsibilities in volunteer positions during their retirement? Are they truly retired? Perhaps, since only they can answer “why?” they do so. The point here is not to judge what options anyone chooses, but rather to clearly identify what we are talking about when we say “retirement” so we can then move on to how to be a smiling retiree.
Next up, Finances, or the way we go about retiring!