What Should You Expect When You Turn 60 Years Old?

Photo by Tim Cooper on Unsplash

I recently answered this question for an obvious younger whippersnapper on Quora.com.

What Should You Expect When You Turn 60 Years Old?

With the 20th anniversary of that age within view for me, I had a few thoughts I’ve accumulated over those two decades.

I hope you won’t expect much more than a cake with a lot of candles on that day, along with a whole bunch of unfunny ageist birthday cards, and a nauseating rash of “over the hill” comments from so-called friends. For example:

Birthday card from my daughter

What is so significant about 60?

Most people get there. How is it more significant than say 50 or 65?

Or any age, for that matter.

As they say, it’s just a number.

Things didn’t start falling off 20 years ago when I turned 60. I was still playing pickup basketball and lifting weights 5x a week. I had to give up the BB at 63 because of a knee issue but still lift weights aggressively 3x per week.

I did notice a slight reversal at or around that time – nose running and feet smelling (sorry – old bad joke!).

Age 60 was a pivotal time for me.

I went against the grain and decided to leave corporate life and start my own business. The idea of retirement didn’t appeal to me then and still doesn’t.

I had grown accustomed to being told that I looked and acted much younger than my 60 years. My response was then – and still is today – that it’s not an accident or genetics. I work at it, physically and mentally. Then and today.

If I tie how I feel or expect to look to a number, I have the wrong mindset. Based on my number and the current average life span of the American male (78.6), well – I missed my funeral.

I am so mystified and miffed at the strange hold that the number 60 and 65 have on us in the U.S. It’s an artificial finish line, an arbitrary number with no particular significance other than the tag the government tied to it 86 years ago and the number the financial service industry keys off of as they help you plan for your demise.

The crest of the hill? The start of the downward slide?

Really? Let’s give it a break and not assign any particular significance to a number, least of all this one.

Willam Shatner didn’t. Do you see what he’s doing at age 90? Or Warren Buffet? Or Clint “The Mole” Eastwood? Betty White will become a centenarian in a few months. It’s a long list of folks who blew past 60, then 65, and didn’t tag any significance to it. Maybe that’s why they’ve been so successful.

What would I do differently at age 60?

Just one big thing.

I’d have a better handle on my essence.

Eeew!! That sounds so esoteric, new agey.

But it’s true. I cut the cord and stepped into the entrepreneurial world totally unequipped and for the wrong reasons. Three decades of corporate life had done nothing to equip me to start my own business. I had never encountered the type of mental challenges that come with putting it on the line with your own business.

I bailed from corporate to have more freedom, to get away from the lack of control of my time and my schedule, and, from self-centered, ladder-climbing bosses. And I bought the Koolaid that said starting your own business in the new world of the internet (yes, it was a baby back then) was going to be easier and more profitable than ever. The work-from-home, control-my-time, t-shirts-and-shorts-wardrobe dream was very alluring.

What I didn’t do was to fully understand what I was really good at and what I wasn’t so good at.

It took me over a decade, a big bunch of stumbles, and an embarrassing slice of a healthy “retirement savings” to come face to face with the fact that I was – and had been for nearly 40 years – operating outside of how my maker had really wired me up and equipped me.

Let’s be real – many of us do the same!

We buy into the 20th-century linear life model of learn-earn-retire and end up with a life spending 40 years busting the hump for what?

FTM – For The Money

-and that nirvanic pot of gold at the end (around 60) called retirement, that unnatural concept that doesn’t exist in nature, didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago, was conceived for political purposes, and takes us away from how our biology serves us.

60 is the edge of a golden age!

At 60 or thereabouts, a fork in the road appears. Start the downward slide or relaunch. Is the rest of your life going to be another and different type of takeoff – or a landing?

Your mind and body are not ready for a landing – they don’t want a landing. They are built to last 122 years and 164 days because a lady in Paris set that benchmark for us in 1997. Reaching 60 isn’t even halfway to that biological benchmark. Yet we cash out at an average age of 80 – only 65% of our full-life potential.

Perhaps much of that is due to the mindset and the decisions that we make at or around age 60.

What are you going to do with your “longevity bonus?”

If you’ve checked, you know that we are living longer than previous generations – maybe by as much as 20, 30, 40 years. Turning 60 and facing another 30 years changes the narrative that we’ve lived with for the last 50 years that says you’re done being anything other than a consumer at 60 or 65.

Be a producer, not a consumer. Forget the self-indulgence.

We’re led to believe that we’re “entitled” to a life of leisure in our later years, that we’ve paid the price to “the man” and earned the right to be a self-indulgent and selfish consumer.

There’s a risk in all that because it doesn’t serve our biology well.

Pre- and early-retirees list these as their greatest fears:

1. Boredom.
2. Loss of identity.
3. Becoming irrelevant.
4. Deteriorating health.

So, at 60, expect your surrounding culture to put certain expectations on you, all based on outdated, irrelevant narratives.

Your choice then becomes buying in or going against the grain. At 60, chances are high that you’ve got lots of gas left in the tank. Resist the pressure and temptation to start the withdrawal and your biology will reward you accordingly.

Consider the possibilities of leveraging decades of acquired skills, experiences, and wisdom to do something the world needs and that is aligned with your innate talents.

I love – and have adopted – a credo followed by Dr. Ken Dychtwald, gerontologist and the world’s foremost authority on aging, that he unveils in his autobiographical book, “Radical Curiosity.”

Breathe – Learn – Teach – Repeat

At 60 and beyond, you are ideally equipped to do just that.

60 yet?  We’d love to hear what it was like for you and what followed. Leave a comment or shoot an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.