Well, COVID, the Feds, and our Governor say no to a conventional Thanksgiving this year. Then the weather says we can’t even do it on the back deck with space heaters. So, it’s each family component on their own.
Hmmm – a 14-pound turkey for two?
It is what it is.
Our family’s best to you for your Thanksgiving, whatever form it may take. Thanks for being a reader and for all your feedback.
P.S. This will end!
A few months ago, as a favor for a friend, I did a webinar entitled “What’s Next? Redefining Retirement and Creating Power and Purpose in Your Post-career Life” for one of the local Christian Living Communities’ senior-living facilities.
Not exactly my “target market” since my focus is more on folks who are approaching, or are early into, their retirement years.
Let’s just say that, although well-attended, the post-webinar response was thin, at best. I wasn’t surprised – or disappointed. I knew going in that “What’s Next” for most of these community residents had been locked down some time ago and their interest in the “new retirementality” and the changing views on retirement would be less than overwhelming.
However, my research for the project came up with some rather cool insights into the evolving retirement landscape. I decided to share some of the fruits of the research.
So, in keeping with my bent toward abject plagiarism (properly attributed) and lack of originality, I share two insights. One from a financial planning firm, Advanced Capital Management (ACM), and another extracted from Ken Dychtwalds book that I introduced last week: “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age.”
ACM produced this clever graphic for one of their blogs. You can see the full blog here. I’m just doing cliff notes below.
Source: Advanced Capital Management, Financial Living Blog
Retired? Which one (or more) describes you?
Considering retirement? Which one (or more) do you want to be?
This may help you decide – or at least plan better.
1. The Tireless Mover
“This person is always on the go, with a bucket list that is seemingly as long as a CVS receipt – trying to sky dive for the first time or seeing the Rolling Stones for the 100th time.”
2. The Lost
“– research has found some people experience ‘anxiety, depression and debilitating feelings of loss’ after retiring. Too often people can put too much focus on money when planning for retirement. It’s important to also plan for the social and psychological shifts, such as coping with the loss of your career identity, forming new relationships, and finding things to do to pass the time.”
3. The Workhorse
“A working retirement? Isn’t that an oxymoron? For many retirees, it’s not. And, they’re not working just for financial reasons. A FlexJobs’ survey of over 2,000 professionals at or near retirement found that 70% need to work to pay for basic necessities, but almost 60% said they work because they enjoy it. Work can provide meaning and a sense of purpose in retirement.”
4. The Lonely
” According to the National Poll on Healthy Aging, researchers at the University of Michigan found that one in three seniors are lonely. Studies indicate that loneliness can harmfully impact older adults’ physical and mental health and shorten life expectancy.”
5. The Globetrotter
“Your interactions with this person may be primarily in the form of either postcards sent from abroad or envious selfies in front of famous landmarks. Survey after survey ranks travel as one of the top retirement activities.”
6. The Reluctant Spender
“In a 2018 study published in the Journal of Personal Finance, half of retired survey respondents said they were afraid to use their savings.” Primary reasons? Healthcare costs and rise and fall of the stock market. “It’s perfectly okay to have concerns about spending, but it should not inhibit your ability to enjoy everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve.”
7. The Superhero
” Not all superheroes wear capes. In fact, most wear T-shirts emblazoned with the word “volunteer.” And, many of those real-world superheroes are retirees. Two-thirds of retirees say they’ve found retirement to be the best time in life to give back.”
8. The Overly Generous
“Some parents and grandparents can’t help themselves. It becomes a problem though when children start to become a financial burden on their retirement goals, which is increasingly common.”
9. The Never Retired
“With only 16% of Americans having saved $200,000 for retirement, according to a 2019 Northwestern Mutual study, it’s a good bet you’ll meet people the same age as you who may never retire.This helps explain why a growing number of Americans expect to work longer. AARP’s Life Reimagined survey found more than half of respondents plan to work past the traditional retirement age of 65. Eleven percent say they expect to keep working into their 80s or beyond.”
Ken Dychtwald’s research for the aforementioned book looked at Boomer’s perspective on health, revealing that some Boomers are health conscious but many are not.
His surveys found “-four basic health styles among Boomers, based on their condition and approaches to health itself, getting health care, and preparing for health expenses in healthcare.”
Here are more cliff notes:
Healthy on Purpose
These Boomers consistently do what’s good for their health, physically and financially. They take pride in their health, eat right, exercise, and don’t let things interfere with their disciplined approach to protecting their health.
Coarse Correctors
A wake-up call has these Boomers paying more attention, causing them to take better care of their health. While most are diligent in their health behaviors, the majority also say they still let things get in the way of attending to their health.
Health Challenged
Conditions, often chronic, keep this group from doing many things they enjoy. While most are concerned about their health and how to pay for it, only 2 of 5 are actively attending to their health, saying that other responsibilities and worries interfere.
Lax but Lucky
This group likely has their genes to thank and not their behaviors because they do not take care of themselves but manage to remain somewhat healthy. Only about a third try to engage in healthy behaviors or seek information on improving their health.
Dychtwald says that roughly 30% fall into each of the first three categories and 10% in the Lax but Lucky.
No surprise here (albeit disappointing): women are in the majority in the first three categories and men in the majority of the Lax but Lucky.
Can you spell “EGO”! “MACHO”!
Scoreboard:
‘nough said. We’ve all got work to do. At the risk of being abrasively repetitive, I’m compelled to remind those who will bother that we, on average, only achieve about 66% of our biological potential. We know that the body will last 122 years and 164 days because Jeanne Calment of Arles, France set that benchmark for us when she checked out in 1997.
I think it’s worth mentioning that rather than filling that 42-year gap, we are currently opening it, with our average lifespan receding.
It’s no longer fate or genes. It’s now about choice.
It’s about “Healthy on Purpose.” And planning ahead to avoid #2 and #4 in the retiree type graphic.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome and helpful. Scroll down and leave a comment or email your thoughts to gary@makeagingwork.com
“Too many people believe that at age 64 you are a productive, contributing member of society. And then, at 65, you’re supposed to retire, go on Social Security and Medicare, and overnight you become irrelevant and become dependent. What we really need to say is that at 65 keep it moving. I like to say it’s not aging in place. It’s thriving in motion.”
That’s a quote from Dr. Charlotte Yeh, Chief Medical Officer of AARP Services, Inc. extracted from Dr. Ken Dychtwald’s new book “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age.” Dr. Yeh is making an appeal for us to “reframe aging, in both our language and our imagery.”
“Thriving in motion” has a nice ring to it, don’t ya think? But it doesn’t fit the ageist stereotype that our culture continues to harbor – inactive, cranky, frail, frumpy, childish, helpless, senile, over-the-hill.
As I’ve written about before, ageism is the last “ism” that hasn’t gotten significant attention. Research suggests that it is more prevalent than sexism and racism, although you won’t get far with that argument in our current culture.
Maybe we won’t make the progress we need against ageism unless we reframe aging. Dychtwald and his co-author and fellow researcher, Robert Morrison think so and devote an entire chapter in this outstanding book to that idea.
You can call me Gary, you can call me Papa or Grandpa, you can even call me “an ancient insufferable p****k” (which a few folks have), or even “older adult.” But DON’T CALL ME A SENIOR OR ELDERLY.
However, you CAN call me an elder. Or, better yet, a “modern elder”, the new term coined by author/entrepreneur Chip Conley which, IMHO, is the best reframing term going. In his best-selling book “Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder,” Conley describes a modern elder as “someone who marries wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner’s mind, and a willingness to learn from those younger.”
Kinda sounds like you don’t dare “act your age” if you intend to be a “modern elder.” That would be a good thing because it’s no longer about a number. We should have legislated the number 65 out of existence long ago for all the counterproductive decisions it’s spawned.
Most retirees today don’t want to be characterized by their age, certainly not by a number.
Karyne Jones, CEO of the National Caucus and Center on Black Aging, says: “I own my age. I have never gone for this ’70 is the new ’50 stuff because it says that you shouldn’t be proud of where you are in your lifespan.”
I’m 78 and don’t want to be the new 58. I wanna be the new 78.
-that the experience of “fun” dips in mid-life and then rises to a peak in the retirement years? Share that with the next irreverent, arrogant, whipper-snapper millennial that dishonors your modern elder status.
Here’s what “fun” looks like at various life stages, according to an AgeWave/Merrill Lynch study entitled “Leisure in Retirement: Beyond the Bucket List”
Age Happiness/Fun Level (on 1-10 scale)
25 6.4
35 6.0
45 6.0
55 6.4
65 7.3
75 7.1
That same study revealed that most retirees are turning out to be living their best years with contentment and relaxation both in the 70+ percentile and anxiety in the under-20 percentile while 25-35-year-olds are in the 30-50 percentile in all three categories.
And all along you were thinking “getting old is a bitch” or “aging isn’t for sissies.”
Wrong self-talk! Ageist language!
So, there you have it. We “modern elders” are having more fun despite the fact that we face discrimination, derision, disrespect, and disparagement.
BUT – –
-maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to point fingers.
Are we acting our age and inviting this invective by:
There are many ways we bring ageism to ourselves.
We’ve all got some work to do.
Chip Conley learned that. Despite his reputation and phenomenal entrepreneurial success, when he accepted a position at Airbnb to counsel CEO Brian Chesky and to be a mentor to Airbnb top performers, he found himself humbled as he engaged with people half his age and with twice his digital smarts. He learned that he needed to become an intern before he could mentor. From that experience, he coined the term “mentern.”
How about if we crawl out of our ideological, theological, age-stamped bubbles, stop listening to our own echoes and try a beginner’s mind, get curious, and go learn something from junior?
Maybe be a mentern. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
Ten or so years ago when I started publicly declaring that I intended to live to 100, invitations to dinner parties – or any social event, for that matter – experienced a noticeable drop.
That’s not really painful for me because, as an introvert, I’m not empowered by large gatherings and am a boor at dinner parties anyway. But it’s really unfair to my bride of 49 3/4 years who can, and does, enliven any get-together with her enthusiasm for banter and selfless interest in other people’s stories.
I’m not sure what it says about my personality to become rather immune to this sort of repulsion. Maybe it’s part of the reason I did OK in my sales career where rejection was a key component of the “game.”
Nonetheless, undaunted and displaying yet another layer of arrogance, three years ago – at age 75 – I decided to up the “ante” and declare my end goal to be 112 1/2. There was simple (delusional?) logic behind the decision: I wanted to have 1/3 of my life left to make up for things I hadn’t gotten done in the first 2/3. (Writer note: Don’t probe – they are painful items and never to be publicly revealed. The victim recipients know what they are).
The response to my announcement? Yawns, mostly.
Probably because the weirdness had already been established and tolerated. The eye-rolls were shorter or the conversations changed quicker.
Or maybe – just maybe – it was because there’s an increasing acceptance of the possibility of living healthfully to 100+ versus the prevailing mental picture of wheelchairs, walkers, nurses, needles, dementia, drool, and Depends that prevailed in earlier (albeit brief) conversations.
– there was a roadmap that increased the possibility of sneaking up on 100 with vitality, vim, and vigor?
– you fell short by a handful of years but beat the average (80) by a decade or more?
-you were able to not only put more years in your life but more life in your years?
-you could make your future, at 50+, bigger than your past?
-you could face a second-half/third age with enthusiasm rather than fear and trepidation?
This is an idea that has been rattling in this aging noggin for a long-time. In fact, a few years ago I reserved the domain name 50to100club.com with a vision in my head of providing a resource for those interested in learning more about how the second half of life can be the most meaningful and productive period of their lifespan.
So, I guess I’m sort of testing the waters a bit here. Short of a formal survey, which may follow, I’m hoping to gauge reader interest in having access to a resource that collects and repurposes content from new science and trends on aging, health and wellness, second half careers/retirement and building and connecting a community with similar interests through articles, podcasts, forums, live conferences, webinars, and the like.
Maybe I’m misreading the interest and the need – but I don’t think so. A simple “yay or nay” by way of a comment below, or to my email at gary@makeagingwork.com, would be helpful, especially if your “yay” offered up a suggestion or two on what sort of content would be most helpful to you.
Thanks for your help!
