Retirement: An Unconventional Perspective
The Myth, Reality, and Possibility of Later Life
I’ve written about retirement before and have presented an alternate view of what life at 75 could be like. But lately I have been diving ever more deeply into the possibilities that later life affords us. It can be a time of life when many inner dynamics that were not available for us to pursue previously become possible to retrieve and ponder due to the wider vantage point, perspective, and life experience that later life affords us. The blinders we wear when we are younger because of the demands of working and family life are no longer necessary. Many new sensations and experiences become available to us in retirement. Chief among these for me is wonder, the wonder of being alive and the deeper experience of life that an increased awareness of mortality brings.
I am not talking about either of the two conventional views of retirement that we see in modern life. One view is the glowing ads of beautiful, silver-haired people enjoying their time traveling, pursuing glamorous activities, or living in places that most people could never afford. That is the Madison Avenue image of retirement, looking to sell you a dream that is not real. The other view is the reality of retirement for most older people, the one that is backed up by statistics, including these facts that I’ve uncovered: the average retiree spends 4.5 to 6 hours a day watching TV; only takes 1 or 2 domestic trips a year (mostly to visit family) and very few international trips; spends more time at the pharmacy, doctor visits, physical therapy, and hospital stays than any other out-of-house activity; and only spends an average of 60 to 90 minutes a day reading or pursuing a hobby or other activity that is personally rewarding. For most retirees, the realities of modern retirement are actually pretty glum.
Even if you are wealthy and can afford those trips and bucket-list activities, it won’t do you any good if your health needs attention. So, let’s talk about the unconventional view of retirement: later-life years that are full of health and vitality, that allow you to travel, pursue your bucket-list activities, and simply enjoy your days feeling pain-free and energized. Simply put, a later life that is a time of flourishing instead of declining. If you really care about your later years, the first thing you need to be mindful of is lowering your risk of health issues and keeping your mobility and energy intact. I’ve written extensively about how I try to do that. Having a health practice and staying active will help make it possible to do what you like to do. But there is another side to this whole issue that I find lacking in much of the current discussion about retirement.
“Re” for Re-Awakening and Re-Imagining
The key point here doesn’t have to be re-awakening or re-imagining. It can be repurposing, restoring, recovering, re-finding, rediscovering, or reclaiming. I’ve found that retirement is a time to become the fuller expression of the entire person I am, my entire “me-ness,” not just the narrow role I squeezed myself into, personally as well as professionally, as the result of childhood circumstances and the pressures of modern life. In fact, this time of your life doesn’t have to be a “re” at all. Depending on who you are and what you want out of life, it can be something entirely different. But chances are, given the human condition, it will harken back to seeds within you when you were younger that never got to grow, perhaps due to lack of love or other experiences that curtailed the inner potential of who you are.
For a long time, I had a problem even saying I was retired. So much of my life identity was linked to my career and what I did rather than who I was. I call it my “resume” life or LinkedIn life. But the work I have been doing over the past 20 years on my health and inner life has been setting me up for a big surprise now that I am in my mid-70s and actually retired. That surprise was a whole new world that has come alive inside me, full of peace and wonder as well as reflection and understanding, with which I now experience everyday life. How I got here, through health pursuits as well as working on my inner emotional dynamics with psychotherapy and spiritual pursuits, has become my passion to pursue and write about. These pursuits keep me plenty busy even in my purposely leisurely life.
Have you experienced this situation? Later life has come with long memory episodes, where I remember whole chapters of my earlier life. I have been able to put the dynamics of those times into a bigger frame and re-experience emotions that might not have been as sharp as I can feel them now. My reaction to these journeys is usually an awareness, like, “So, that’s what was going on.” And I’ve been able to understand those dynamics in a new way. As I’ve written about in my book there is an element of all this that involves a “great guide” inside me that was, and is, writing the story of my life.
I am not alone in this unconventional view of retirement, but admittedly, it is not the path that most retirement-aged people take. A friend was a successful actor in TV and film. At around 60 he went back to school, got his master’s degree, and became a college history professor, a passion of his since childhood. Not accidentally, and now 65, he is very fit and looks after his health because he wants to continue teaching and studying, doing what he loves for as long as possible. And while stories like his, and mine, are relatively rare, they can be a template for a later life that, again, is a time of flourishing rather than declining.
The “Rosebud” Clue to What Matters
The first step on the path to a re-awakened or re-imagined later life is finding what matters to you. Here’s a hint. In the great movie Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane, played by Orson Welles, says the word “rosebud” as he dies and is holding a snow globe in his hands. No one could figure out what the word meant. Only at the very end of the movie is it revealed, only to the audience, that Rosebud was the brand name written on his childhood sled, which was previously shown in a scene of him with his mother on a snowy hill as a happy and loved child. The audience learns that it was his last pleasant memory before being sent to live with a trustee, away from his parents.
I offer that story here because, often, we naturally harken back to childhood to discover what was lost in our adult lives. In my case, it was wonder, as well as some avenues to happiness that were blocked that I am now remembering and re-experiencing. One of the best places to find what really matters to you is your own past—your memories and insights of times that brought you the most happiness. Let your aspirations for this culminating time of life come from its beginnings.
