What will you do with your “longevity bonus”?

So, I’m at my 9 year-old desktop computer staring into dual monitors doing my bus dev search thing on Linked In looking for key points-of-contact in companies in my targeted recruiting niche.  Recruiting remains a part of my “portfolio work life” because of a couple of things: (1) I married a woman who likes to sleep inside and eat warm food and (2) the outsize mortgage that comes with fulfilling that marital commitment.

My keyword search turned up a Director of Human Resources for a company I am targeting because she had “Director, Human Resources” in her Linked In headline.  But it was what she had below her headline that really caught my eye.  It said:

Traveling and Living Life

My curiosity was naturally piqued because (1) HR Directors are normally pretty office bound, often chained to their chairs, spread thin, understaffed and overworked and (2) “living life” is not the demeanor that I usually associate with how HR Managers view their work life.  It’s a grinder job.

A further peek into the profile reveals that this particular HR Director had retired after 33 years in her field and is now “traveling and living life.”  Apparently this new life didn’t leave time for her to update her Linked In profile.  I probably wouldn’t bother either if I were that excited about finally “living life.”

From her profile, I could estimate her age between 55 and 60, so she’s one of that diminishing number of folks who are choosing to retire early.

But here’s what struck me as odd.  If she started “living life” on January 2017, which is apparently her retirement/matriculation date, what was she doing with her life for the previous 33+ years?  Dying?

Well, technically, yes.  Because we all start dying the minute we are born. But isn’t there an interesting perspective and message in that innocent phrase?  It would seem to say very loudly that my “years-to-date” have been less than thrilling and gratifying and that I needed to get out to finally live life.

My kudos to her for fooling her employer for those three decades.

The linear-life-cycle model

I guess none of us should be surprised by that. At her age, like most “boomers”, she was born into a culture built around a three-stage, age-graded model – the linear life model.  I call it the 20-40-20 plan: 20 years for education, 40 years of work (typically for “the man” and building “the man’s” dream) to be followed by the coveted 20 years of retirement bliss, doing what you really wanted to do all along during those first 60 or so years.

What they failed to tell us, back in the day, was that, if you followed this traditional retirement model, that third part – the 20 at the end – usually didn’t end up being the full 20.  IBM did a study a generation ago and found that their average retiree didn’t make it past their 24^th pension check.  Shell Oil did a study of early retirees and found that embarking on the retirement path at age 55 doubled the risk for death before reaching 65.

I haven’t checked.  Can frequent flyer miles be used to pay funeral expenses?

What’s our protagonist going to do – just travel until she dies?  I know travel is a big deal for retirees.  And there are certainly some awesome places to visit and see on this mudball.  But at some point does living a life tied to travel start to become a bit of a wobbly stool? After all, how many pictures can you store and have time to reminisce over?  Plus, last I heard reminiscence is not a great profit producer or life extender.

Longevity bonus

Here’s the other possible glitch in all this.  There’s an increasing chance today that said HR Director may live 15, 20, 30 years longer than she thinks she will.  That’s more time than most frequent flyer accumulations will last or, for that matter, more time than needed to see all the places in the world worthy of photographing.

Our “lucky” former HR Manager may be faced with what a huge swath of boomers are, or will be, facing:   extended life spans that outlast their resources.

So, I guess reality sets in at some point for Ms “traveling and living life”.   And that reality may mean finding a way to replenish the coffers spent seeing the world. Egads!  Not back to work!  Back to not-living-life?

Work extends lives

It might have to happen.  It’s happening for a growing number of us – working longer.  But we’re also learning that extending our work lives actually increases our vitality and energy and, ironically, adds to our longevity. Work, in fact, has been determined to be the number one contributor to healthy extended living.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be for money.  Maybe you are one of the fortunate few today who planned well enough to be well-heeled through your second half.  It can be volunteer, or a “play-check” as suggested by Mitch Anthony, author of the fabulous book “The New Retirementality.”

It a mixed bag of ironies.  We work hard to be able to get away from work only to find out that what we strove to get away from is what ultimately enables us to live healthier, longer.

I know this message flies right by the 33% of retirees who have no intention of ever going back to work.  But for those of us in the 67%, it can be an exciting time of second growth.  A time when we can continue to work doing more of what we REALLY want to do and thus make aging work for us instead of against us.

That’s why I really love working with 50+’ers to help them get creative about how they can finish out having left a footprint. It’s exciting to see creativity and enthusiasm resurrected.

I’d love to hear your comments on all this.  What are your views on work in this second half?  How are you going to plan for the possibilities of an extended life?  What’s been working for you as you begin to move into this “second growth” period?