How Not To Waste a Retirement.

“The retirement age is coming down from 70, to 65, to 60 and may, in the course of the next 25 years, go below that.

But the dream come true is a nightmare.

For retirement, conceived as a protracted vacation, is a form of prolonged suicide. It marks the first formal stage on the road to oblivion.

Consider the loss to society and deprivation of the individual involved when a man in the real prime of life, the mental, moral, and spiritual prime, is turned out to pasture at the decree of the calendar – someone who has the most creative and most socially useful part of his labor still in him. 

Here is greatness wasted on the putting greens of Long Beach or the green benches of St. Petersburg.

What is the solution, or is there a solution?

Just – work. Work, not to insure your retirement, but to prevent it! You will benefit greatly from any kind of work which is a challenge to that part of you which continues growing.

It is finally time to distill wisdom from experience and to give of that wisdom.”

Darn! I wish I’d come up with that last line.

The statement belongs to the late Dr. Mortimer Adler, renowned educator and author. Dr. Adler had been invited onboard the ocean-liner Queen Mary to a luxurious meeting facility filled with the creme-de-la-creme of insurance executives who were gathered for a Million Dollar Roundtable of the National Association of Life Underwriters. Dr. Adler was asked to speak to this illustrious group “to aid in their continuing search for self-development.”

The year was 1962, almost 6 decades ago. Adler turned the tables on the expectations of this group by likening the American retirement dream to digging a premature grave.

I found this story in the excellent book by Mark S. Walton entitled “Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond.”

Adler’s assertion rings true today. Walton continues Adler’s message: “Find a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up” Adler asserted, “from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

Our pre-occupation with retirement has turned “work” into another unattractive four-letter word for many. For nearly a century now we have re-categorized work into something we tolerate for 35-45 years with the goal to get away from it so we can hopefully do what we really wanted to do 45 years before. That is assuming we knew back then.

But research tells us that we abandon work at our own peril.

A study of 83,000 Americans 65 and older published in Preventing Chronic Disease, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that being unemployed or retired was associated with the greatest risk of poor health.

Jay Olshansky, a professor at the Chicago’s School of Public Health agrees with the article, saying: “We know that remaining in the labor force is good for us. Not working can lead to overall poorer health.”

Making it the best of four-letter words

In his 1989 best-selling business book “The Age of Unreason”, Charles Handy offered some prescient advice about work and its role in our evolving society. He points out that 50-60 years ago (from 1989) people signed on for work expecting to work 100,000 hours. His formula: 47 hrs/week x 47 weeks/year x 47 years (age 18-65). But now that number is closer to 50,000 hours (37 x 37 x 37) as technology enables companies to do more with fewer bits of our time, as we enter the job force later (avg: 22-24), and with a trend of people retiring earlier.

If we factor in a longevity bonus of 15-30 years that is now becoming more of a reality, I don’t think I’m too far off  Handy’s mark by suggesting that we not only risk our health and longevity when we stop working, but we are also robbing society of 50,000 hours of productivity, creativity, and contribution back to mankind.

In Handy’s words:

“Those unused 50,000 hours can be our opportunity to discover the missing bits of ourselves, to explore new talents, to add variety to ordinary weeks, to meet new people, and to learn new skills.  Those unused hours can add up to a huge new resource for society rather than a pile of unwanted people if we start thinking positively, if we find a way to pay for it, and if, first of all, we start redefining “work” so that it no longer means only a job. It is not the devil who finds work for idle hands to do, it is our own human instincts which make us want to contribute to our world, to be useful, and to matter in some way to other people; to have a reason to get up in the morning.”

Some thirty years ago, Handy put a dagger into the heart of the prevailing concept of retirement with his appeal to his readers to consider work the purpose of life.  He lists “the three P’s at the heart of life – purpose, pattern, people”.  Work provides all three.

Yet, still today, so many can’t wait to abandon work to pursue – – – what? The “what” becomes the rub. For 2 out of 3 retirees, the “what” tends to be shallow and short-term. Garage cleaned and re-organized, golf lessons scheduled, checking off the travel bucket list, alarm clock disabled, pigging out on deferred Netflix series, self-indulgence to the max. One or two years in, those irritating questions surface: “Is this all there is?” “How am I relevant?” “Why am I feeling bored?” “Can I get my old identity back?”

The AgeWave organization confirmed, in their survey of 50,000 retired Baby Boomers that despite 80-90% of pre-retirees being confident they would realize their retirement dreams and goals, only 40% of retirees achieved those happiness and retirement dreams. Vitality, energy, and still-fresh skills are atrophied and productive years wasted.

Active Wisdom

I wrote about the concept of “active wisdom” last year in this article about purpose. It’s a term coined by anthropologist, activist, and writer Mary Catherine Bateson.  She calls it a “new stage” where “wisdom is reaped from years of experience and living.”  She calls it the “most acceptable and positive trait associated with longevity.”

Purpose brings the “why”. Active wisdom brings the “what.”

If you’re past 40 and can fog a mirror, you’ve got “active wisdom.” Our culture needs it spread around, although it doesn’t give a rip about encouraging you to spread it.  It’s more inclined to think of you as a drag on society and prefer that you shuffle off to a warehouse, out of sight, out of the way, out of mind.

Adler had it right:

“It is finally time to distill wisdom from experience and to give of that wisdom.  Find a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

Let’s empty the warehouses!!

Love to hear from you with your thoughts on all this. Leave us a comment below or drop an email to gary@makeagingwork.com with your feedback. I’m doing these articles weekly, so if you aren’t on our mailing list and would like to receive future articles, join our email list at www.makeagingwork.com.

 

Dealing With the Fear and Regrets of Aging

I recently had a reader pose a question to me that I fear may be on the minds of far too many folks.

Here was her question:

What are books for someone with a fear of getting older? I feel scared of aging and having the feeling that time is slipping by and I haven’t really “lived” yet.

–and here’s my response:

Although I don’t think books are the answer to what really ails you, I will recommend books written by life and executive coach and prolific author, Steve Chandler. In particular, consider investing in:
  1. Fearless: Creating the Courage to Change the Things You Can.
  2. Crazy Good: A Book of Choices
  3. The Story of You (and How to Create a New One)
  4. Time Warrior: How to Defeat Procrastination, People-Pleasing, Self-doubt Over-Commitment, Broken Promises, and Chaos.

One of the themes you will pick up from Chandler, if you choose to invest in his writing, is the idea of avoiding “time travel.” In other words, avoid living in the past or the future.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. The main resident of the past is regret; the main resident of the future is fear. Neither can exist in the present moment.

I’m going to take a wild stab here and assume that you are moving through the mid-point of life i.e mid-40s to late 50s. That’s when these types of uncomfortable questions begin to surface. Why am I here? Is this all there is? Does anybody know I’m here? Do I matter? Etc., ad infinitum.

The thought choices you are making are something that is under your control. We can’t control all the circumstances we encounter but we have total control over how we respond to those circumstances. You are creating fictitious circumstances in advance and allowing that to create fear (false expectations appearing real).

One of the circumstances you can’t control is that you will be older tomorrow than you are today. But you can control how you deal with that. You may be surprised that research has determined that the lowest point of happiness for most people is in the late 40s and the happiest periods are when they are in their 60s, 70s, 80s.

Most fear is manufactured

Your fear of aging is an example of a manufactured thought that has a weak basis for existing. It may be based on your observation of people who have experienced health issues in later life. Those people aren’t you and it’s not healthy to project their situations into your world.

Your health in your later years is heavily influenced by the decisions that you make from this point forward. Substitute your fear with action and commit to doing the things that will grant you a better chance of avoiding the things you fear. Diet, exercise, continuous learning, and social engagement are essential components of that doing.

It’s helpful to remember that time can’t be managed. It’s fixed into seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. We can only manage ourselves within the context of inflexible time. That’s why “time travel’ out of the present moment is so wasteful and unhealthy.

One of the gifts that we are all given is imagination. Fear suppresses imagination. Fear generates worry which is the grossest misuse of imagination possible.

Resurrect your giftedness

You were gifted at birth with a level of talent and uniqueness that, like most, has been tamped down by meeting the conformity that is expected of us by our culture.

Let me share a quote from another favorite author, Seth Godin, from his book “Linchpin”:

“Anxiety is needless and imaginary. It’s fear about fear that means nothing. The difference between fear and anxiety: anxiety is diffuse and focuses on possibilities in an unknown future, not a real and present threat. The resistance is 100 percent about anxiety. Anxiety is an internal construct with no relation to the outside world. ‘Needless anxiety’ is redundant because anxiety is always needless. Anxiety doesn’t protect you from danger, but from doing great things. It keeps you awake at night and foretells a future that’s not going to happen. Fear is about staying alive. There’s not a lot of genuine fear here in our world. Anxiety, on the other hand, is dangerous paralysis. Anxiety is the exaggeration of the worst possible what-if, accompanied by self-talk that leads to the relentless ‘minimization of the actual odds of success’.”

Suppose you accepted the fact that the days ahead of you are an opportunity to dust off that uniqueness and put it to work doing something you are really good at and that you really enjoy doing and that makes a contribution to what the world needs.

Do that, live in the present moment and you won’t leave space in your mental bandwidth for fear and worry.

Four Steps to a Bountiful Post-career Harvest

“For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned, it is the season of harvest.” Hasidic saying

I’m curious. Has your financial planner – assuming you are working with one, which I hope you are –  ever dropped the word “harvest” into your conversation as you pour over the charts and graphs and talk “what’s next?”

Let’s look at the word first. Merriam Webster says this:

  • Noun: “the act of gathering in a crop; the product or reward of effort.“
  • Verb: “reap.”

I may be wrong, but I can’t imagine that word getting a lot of play in insurance sales school.

Now, maybe you are one of the fortunate few who have engaged a financial planner or adviser that thinks “beyond the numbers” and pays more than lip service to the non-financial components of retirement. Financial planners are important, valuable, and necessary. But, chances are they aren’t going to lead you into a deep discussion of the four biggest concerns that retirees have beyond money: (1) boredom; (2) loss of identity; (3) becoming irrelevant; (4) deteriorating health.

Planners sell financial products, not psychological counseling.

How can we avoid these four concerns, reap a reward for our first-half effort, experience a purposeful “harvest”, and avoid a retirement winter?

Here are four suggestions that may help.

1. Build a new “friends list.” With your retirement, we can safely assume you disengaged from the largest, longest-lasting, and one of the most important sets of relationships in your life when you left work. No problem, you say. I’ll stay in touch with most of them. Guess again – 90% of them forgot your name as they gulped down a slice of your retirement cake and watched you vacate the building. Don’t expect return calls – they are all entwined in their own sets of issues still building somebody else’s dream.

Start now to build a new list. Who can you add to keep it alive and vibrant? Who do you know casually that you want to go deeper with because, well, they don’t have time for ageist, senior-citizen-type conversations and they light up a room when they enter. Who can you add that would agree to a plan to hold each other accountable for not heading to geezerville?

Don’t let retirement become a winter void of sustaining relationships. Social isolation is a killer – ARRP reminds us that it is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

2. Commit to a holistic self-care plan. Sorry, but your planner didn’t get a lick of training on how your or his/her biology works while in insurance school. Oh, I appreciate that you will be advised to “take care of yourself.” But what about some detail? That’s on you. Now, perhaps for the first time, you need to be the true CEO of your health.

Your self-care plan should include a relationship with a primary-care provider that goes beyond the typical “drug or cut-it-out” mentality and can engage you in a holistic conversation about your bio-markers, general health condition, what to include, and what to avoid – a trained clinician who is willing to partner with you in your self-care plan. Your “back nine” years will probably require making up for some marginal “front nine” lifestyle patterns, so it shouldn’t be treated casually. Those bad first-half habits have an insidious nature that creep up and manifest on an accelerating basis in our 50s and 60s unless accounted for and slowed down or stopped early in the retirement years.

Consider a commitment to learning about the basics of your cellular biology. Can you explain to me how your body works as effectively as you can about how your lawnmower or dishwasher works?  Probably not, if you an American. Why should you when the “fix” is only a $35 copay away? A physician once told me that the biggest killer in our culture is healthcare illiteracy. If we did appreciate how our body works, would we still take 35% of our meals through the side window of our cars? Or spend, on average (as retirees), 49 hours a week one with the La-z-Boy and voice-activated remote.

The book “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond” turned the ship for me eight years ago, particularly Chapter Five. Yes, it was written 16 years ago, but your cellular structure hasn’t changed in billions of years. Dr. Lodge’s chapter will help you understand the consequences – good and bad – of your daily treatment of your 100-trillion-cell immune system.

3. Accelerate your learning. Wait, haven’t I done enough of that? Truth is, you probably had pretty well stopped any kind of serious learning a couple of decades ago. Just as you want that physical self to remain vibrant, you need to work even harder at keeping that 2 1/2 pounds of fatty acid between your temples in even better shape.

Fifty years ago, even neurologists believed that neurological senescence was automatic and unalterable. Fortunately, they are all now dead. We’ve learned tons about the brain since then and know that we can build new neural connections for as long as we want. Yep, it’s slower and harder, but what isn’t after 60? What are you not doing that you always wanted to do because you feel it would be too hard or take too much time? There’s your starting point. Stretch yourself mentally with something that takes you outside your comfort zone. Evidence mounts that doing so is antidotal to dementia.

4.Let your purpose find you and go fix something. Have you noticed that a lot of things in our culture are broken right now? What if you headed off the boredom and loss-of-identity that accompanies full-stop retirement and dusted off your peculiarity, your uniqueness and packaged it up with the skills and experiences of 40 years of work and went out and “made a ruckus” aimed at fixing something. What if you got back in the ring – on your terms, at your pace, doing what you may have forgotten you are/were really, really good at and loved doing? You don’t have to look far to find something that needs fixing. Substitute “re-creation” for “recreation” and go change something. And when that’s fixed, go change something else.

Here’s a quote from a recent Chip Conley blog to ponder:

“While recreation and re-creation are not mutually exclusive, the latter promises the elixir of life. An alchemical cocktail of curiosity and wisdom, garnished with fresh sprigs of a beginner’s mind, creativity, and service. To regenerate is to make new again. To retire is to withdraw into seclusion.”

 

I spent a bunch of my formative years engaged in farming activities. I’ve seen a harvest or two. I’ve also seen what happens if the harvest doesn’t happen. It’s called rot. Rot can be a post-career option. It is for many. But you, dear reader, are a harvester. And society will be better for it.

Chasing “Yet.” Please tell me you haven’t stopped.

My son got me a Samsung tablet for my 79th birthday last month. Probably out of sympathy.  Really an amazing surprise considering he’s endured 44 years of my personality.

It’s a great gift because it’s an upgrade from my cell phone as a feed for my large appetite for YouTube and other video podcasts to overcome the boredom of my daily encounters with the treadmill and upright bike.

I’ve gotten into Matthew McConaughey (MM) lately.  I know, I’m late for that party. He’s been “hot” on the podcast and speaking circuit for a while judging from the number of his YouTube videos.  It may have been the straightforward truth he spoke at the commencement speech at the University of Houston that kick-started all this. It’s worth a watch and a listen.

It’s hard not to like him as an actor. I find it easy to like him even more as a “normal” homo sapien who seems to have avoided the Hollywood varnish/veneer and gotten down to thinking deeply about and sorting out really meaningful life issues – and sharing them for our consumption and benefit.

I’ve also been deep into the “gospel according to Seth Godin” for the last year or so. Seth is considered the master of marketing and goes against the grain on conventional thinking about most everything, especially about meaningful success and achievement.

When I hear a concept from the mouths of both Godin and MM, stated slightly differently, my radar goes up.

Time to pay attention.

Chasing “yet”

MM calls it “chasing yet.” It’s a guiding principle in his life:  that he’ll go to his grave “chasing yet.” As in, I’m not “there yet” but I’m moving in that direction knowing that I’ll never get “there” completely. It’s a fundamental tenet of mastery. Never abandoning the process, not focusing on outcomes. Finding joy in a daily journey tethered to his uniqueness.

Godin, in his latest, and best, book (#19 or #20, I forget which) “The Practice: Shipping Creative Work”, takes the same line in different words, exposing the principle of “so far” and “not yet.” As in (from “The Practice”):

“You haven’t reached your goals (so far). You’re not as good at your skill as you want to be (not yet).

You are struggling to find the courage to create (so far).

This is fabulous news. 

Persistent and consistent effort over time can yield results.

“So far” and “not yet” are the foundations of every successful journey.”

Retirement and “chasing yet.”

OK, I guess you knew I was going here.

Retirement suppresses “chasing yet.”

I wrote two weeks ago about not giving up on our “unrepeatable uniqueness”, about not ignoring those inborn childhood “inclinations.” About considering the hours already accumulated against that 10,000 hours that may define our mastery. About not drinking the cultural Koolaid that says it’s time to shut all that down and just “enjoy life” with the inference that the enjoyment is to be found in ending the chase.

“Chasing yet” puts another layer on the invalidation of traditional retirement as the way to finish out.

Now, I admit, I’ve not heard either MM or Godin comment on the concept of retirement. But I’ll take any bets that say they both are retirement advocates. I don’t think there is room in their mindsets for that dissonance.

Why does Warren Buffett still show up every morning at the office and read financial reports and newspapers five hours a day?

Why does William Shatner, at 88, still perform, travel the world, cut C&W albums, live life like his hair is on fire.

They, along with a growing cohort, all disdain retirement. They are still “chasing yet” finding joy in a journey without concern for the outcomes.

What’s your “yet?”

If you are retired, can you resurrect it?

If you are planning retirement, where does it fit in your non-financial retirement plan? Or does it exist at all?

How far back in your neural circuitry have you allowed your uniqueness and inclinations to retreat in favor of an unnatural concept that goes against our very biology.

We need you to be “more peculiar.”

One of the more unusual and refreshing concepts that Seth Godin touts is to increase your peculiarity. That thought terrifies my cohort and immediate family as I push the limits there already. But Godin is simply saying that your peculiarity is your uniqueness and that it deserves to be deepened and shared.

Your peculiarity may be – probably is – your “yet.”

My peculiarity is writing something every day because that’s how I’m currently “chasing yet” knowing that I’ll never be the best writer and that lots of folks won’t like what I say and that all that is OK.

It’s a goalless “yet” and the outcomes defy definition.  But the journey produces the joy. Reassurance and reliance on outcomes deny the joy.

Our third age, our “back nine” is the time to let our peculiarity flourish. We are called to not deny others the benefit.

What is your “peculiarity?” Are you “chasing yet?” Please share your thoughts – leave a comment below. If you haven’t, you can join our growing list of readers at www.makeagingwork.com. Join the tribe – and bring a friend with you.