Growing old or getting old? They’re two different things and you have a choice.

We are all going to grow old – that is inevitable and immutable.

Life is a fatal disease. Once contracted, there is no known cure.

Time marches on.

Getting old, on the other hand, is optional.

That’s between the temples. How we grow old is largely up to us and starts with attitude.

I’ll bet you know a 50-year-old that’s going on 80. And an 80-year-old going on 50.

The difference?

Sorry, you’re wrong if you said genetics. Genetics may determine 20–30% of our longevity at most. Attitude can affect longevity and determines 100% of how we view aging.

Recent research has revealed that people who have a positive attitude about aging live an average of 7 years longer than those who don’t.

We westerners have a fixation on numbers, especially in the U.S. where we seem unwilling/unable to release the number 65 from our thinking as a turning point to the downside slope of our lives.

We couple that with the non-sensical concept of retirement and accelerate the growing old and then die short of our biology’s true longevity potential.

We know there is no biological reason that any of us shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond. But we continue to pull up severely short of that benchmark.

In my experience, the mere mention of living that long amongst my age cohort (80) invites plenty of scorn and invective. Most are repulsed by the idea, failing to acknowledge that we’re designed to last at least that long. We should if we viewed our later years differently and dispensed with the cultural influences that help us accelerate the decline that most people experience in the second half of life.

My 80-year-old body, while in much better shape than even most 60-year-olds, still confirms that the immutable is moving forward. I am growing old and will, just like you, eventually die.

But I’m choosing not to get old despite the external evidence that it is happening, albeit at a slower accelerating pace than for most of my cohort.

I’m striving to give my body and mind what they need to come as close as possible to the 122-year benchmark for longevity set for us by a lady in Paris, France in 1997.

I don’t expect to get there because there is likely too much early life (pre-40) damage done to overcome to make that happen. But, I expect to come closer than most by setting a 100+ year goal than if I just chose to accept average.

I’m already ahead since I just turned 80 and the average lifespan for an American male is around 75 (and declining).

Two things that will help me get closer to that benchmark:

  1. Gratitude: as crazy as it sounds, I’m grateful that I will die because it means I lived when many are never given the chance. I have the gift of life.
  2. I stopped time-traveling into the past and the future and accept that I only have today. One of my antidotes to growing old is to attitudinally live in the present moment and avoid the worry, regrets, and fears that lie in the past and future.

I have no illusions about the fact that it could all be over tomorrow.

Right now, I have this moment.

What is better – having a job or being retired? Let’s think this through.

I’ll apologize in advance for what is a pretty esoteric answer.

I suggest that neither is a good option.

Job

What is a “job?” Some have defined it as “jackass of the boss”, a rather brash definition but, unfortunately, one that applies for many.

A job is a relatable term for most as it’s what we do every day to produce income, the fuel that keeps us on the daily racecourse. The dictionary defines job as “a lump, chore or duty.”

For some, that lump is a “lump of coal.”

Jobs became the thing with the industrial revolution as industry carved things up into chores or duties all focused collectively on enabling the achievement of the company goals.

Fundamentally, we began to sell our time to build someone else’s dream.

Consider that the average job is around 3.2 years and that during the average lifespan, most of us will have had a dozen or more “jobs.”

Career

With a step up the work chain, we find “career” which is a word, interestingly, that has its origin in the Latin word “carrus” or “wheeled vehicle” denoting a “cart” and then later from the French word “carrier” denoting a road or racecourse.

The dictionary defines career, as a verb, to mean “move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction.”

Careers for many are just that – a mad rush for a long time that ends up going nowhere with that disappointment coming late in life. Or maybe it’s going somewhere in terms of provision and accumulation, but not in a way that fits the definition of a “calling”.

The checkered flag at the end of this racecourse is that coveted pot of gold called retirement, a finish line the desire for which may have impeded the pursuit of a true calling.

Vocation

Which leads, then, to the concept of vocation. Vocation is rooted in the Latin vocāre, meaning to call, which suggests listening for something that calls out to you, a voice telling you what you are.

Today, we’ve convoluted the true meaning of the word and relate vocation to specialized training into a “career track” or a “job” via a vocational or trade school. Not likely the pursuit of a “higher calling” but more a decision based on need and what may be trending in the “job” market.

GRAMMARIST | English grammar, usage, and style blog defines a vocation as:

“a calling, an occupation, or a large undertaking for which one is especially suited. It can be roughly synonymous with career or profession, though vocation connotes a seriousness or a commitment that these words don’t always bear.”

Currently, we tend to mix vocation in with two other words – career and job – when their distinctions are quite different.

I’m basing this strange answer on a simple observation – one that I made about four decades ago that still holds true.

Highly successful people, world changers, and deep influencers don’t have jobs or careers and they don’t retire.

They have a vocation. They have discovered and are answering a calling. They are honoring their “uniqueability.” They don’t leave the creative process. They tend to “work themselves to death.”

And-

-they live longer than most.

Work – another bad four-letter word.

Retirement is based on a French verb meaning “retreat, go backward.”

We’ve bought into this unnatural, longevity-sapping act which has created an either/or mindset. Work is something to get away from. We either work or we retire – not both.

The possibility of avoiding a “lump of coal” or job and pursuing a life of leisure has a much stronger appeal than considering the possibility of a lifetime of answering a calling and pursuing it to the end.

We all have a “vocation” in us. But it gets covered over, pushed back as we pursue the 20th-century linear life model of learn-earn-relax/retire-die.

Within that model, we will pursue that paycheck at the expense of our calling to achieve an act that has been shown to shorten our lives and create a drain on our society.

We’re waking up.

The no-work, leisure-based retirement model is dying, none too soon. The emerging model rejects either/or and thinks both/and with the emergence of a lifestyle model built around “semi-retirement for a lifetime.”

It’s built around the simple discovery that busting your hump for 40+ years to accumulate enough to do nothing for another 20 years is a failed model. It is nearly impossible to accumulate enough savings over a 40-year work life to support a totally no-work lifestyle for another 20–30 years.

Millennials, GenXers, and even Boomers, are adopting a semi-retired lifestyle built around work following their calling and designed to support a balance of work, leisure, and learning for a lifetime.

Most Americans of Retirement Age Are Not Ready to Retire. That Could Be a Good Thing!

 

Forgive me for cheating a bit this week. I’m sharing a recent post I put out on Quora recently that kicked up some fuss. You’ve read much of this before, but, as it’s said, repetition is the mother of learning. So, it’s that thought, along with this –

-that has me short-cutting this week. Thumb repair and keyboards make for a painful experience.

Thanks for indulging me.

Help me understand something:

  1. What is a “retirement age?”
  2. Who determines it?
  3. How is it determined?
  4. Does it exist everywhere?
  5. Is it the same for everybody?
  6. WHY DOES IT EVEN EXIST?

Do we stop and think this through?

We get all wrapped around the axel over a concept that:

  1. Is an unnatural act that doesn’t exist in nature.
  2. Didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago.
  3. Doesn’t exist in many cultures, many of which also have much longer healthspans and average lifespans than countries enamored by retirement.
  4. Was conceived for political and not humanitarian purposes.
  5. Establishes an arbitrary and artificial finish line based on political decisions made 86 years ago.
  6. Was creatively exploited and packaged up by insurance salespeople to create a multibillion-dollar financial services industry in which it’s only about the numbers.
  7. Promotes a mindset that says work is to be avoided and often establishes lifestyle habits that are contrary to the grow-or-die nature of our biology and physiology.
  8. Has become a deeply entrenched pseudo-entitlement with little basis for existence that has become so deeply entrenched in the western psyche as to be virtually unassailable.

I’m one of a still small but growing group of “retirement-aged” people who question the sensibility of retirement as we’ve had it drilled into us for the last 50+ years.

Perhaps you could tell from the above.

I came to that conclusion about 40 years ago –

-as I observed that many of the most successful world-changers were living longer and didn’t disengage from the creative process i.e. they didn’t retire.

Today, in the U.S., we still cling to the number 65 as that coveted retirement age although it was a number established 86 years ago by FDR and his union and business cronies to get older people out of the workforce to make room for rioting younger workers during the great depression.

The average lifespan at the time was 62, reinforcing the fact that it was not a humanitarian move.

Mysteriously, with the help of a powerful financial services industry, we still see that number as the top of the productivity hill and the start of – – – –

-well that’s where it gets interesting.

The roadmaps past 65 are limited. And the financial services folks aren’t trained, qualified, or interested in providing anything other than a financial roadmap – and one that is unrealistic and unachievable for most.

Check out these recent numbers from a retirement study from the Transamerica Center:

Total household retirement savings among all workers is $93,000 (estimated median). Baby Boomer workers have the most retirement savings at $202,000, compared with Generation X ($107,000), Millennials ($68,000), and Generation Z ($26,000) (estimated medians).

So you are a boomer with $200k in the bank and a financial advisor saying you need 5x that to sustain a “pleasurable” retirement. And, if you can’t get there, it’s because you aren’t disciplined enough or working hard enough.

Certainly, they say, the charts and graphs can’t be the problem – YOU are the problem. But, still, 1-2 % of that $200K lines their coffers each year while you get your act together.

Not a bad gig if you can get it and spread it across enough sheep.

An alternate plan with mental, physical, psychological, and spiritual considerations are not part of their program or expertise.

That didn’t matter much if you only lived 3–5 years beyond 65. Beach, bingo, bridge, and bocce ball made sense then. Not today, with 20–30 years of potential productive runway left.

It is unrealistic, in today’s world, to expect very many to reach the saving goals that retirement professionals say are required to sustain a 20–30 year non-income-producing life.

For one, fewer people can save much, if any. For another, most start too late with no chance of catching up to these large numbers.

So, we are on our own negotiating the aftermath of the questionable decision to exit the production mode and enter the leisure mode. It’s understandable that there is more angst today than ever amongst the U.S. population (where I am) about being able to reach the financial numbers that will support an extended non-work retirement life.

Perhaps we should start by accepting the reality that it’s near impossible to expect 40 years of “bust-your-hump” savings to finance 20-30 years of doing mostly nothing.

Comfort, convenience, and conformity.

As Americans, we are notoriously poor savers. We link that with short-term thinking linked to a cultural-driven tendency to seek comfort, convenience, and to conform to those around us.

Add to that the fact that most of us still cling to the 20th-century linear life model of 20 years of learn, 40 years of earn, and 20 years of relax and die.

Your financial adviser isn’t likely to inform you that the chances are better than 50% that 10 of those last 20 years are going to be in poor health and not very enjoyable because of the habits developed during the 40 years of busting the hump to earn, reach their unrealistic saving numbers, and enable a lifestyle that may take you out early.

How many other 86-year old concepts do you still have operating in your life?

We’re seeing a gradual, long-past-due transition away from the traditional retirement model with its onerous savings requirements.

The gradual demise of learn-earn-relax-die is giving way to a model that supports continued working past the normal retirement age. And it’s not just the money that is motivating this movement. There is a growing understanding that having some form of purposeful work – for pay or not for pay – in the latter third of life is a key to healthier longevity.

A balance of a purposeful life mixed with leisure and continued learning is an emerging post-career lifestyle model.

The concept of semi-retirement is growing rapidly, not only amongst those of retirement age but also amongst millennials and GenXers who don’t buy into the linear life model.

Some are semi-retiring in their 30s and 40s into a lifestyle doing what they enjoy and are good at and doing it on their terms with the expectation of doing it well past the normal retirement age.

It works for those well past the artificial finish line, like yours truly.

Think about trying it – you might like it, especially the relief from the aforementioned financial planner guilt trip.

Here’s an article that provides a perspective on this concept:

Exactly What It Means To Be Semi-Retired

Does all this resonate? What are your thoughts, pro or con? Love to have your feedback on this topic. Leave a comment here or email me your thoughts at gary@makeagingwork.com. New articles each week on retirement, aging, or health and wellness at www.makeagingwork.com

Aging: When You Have More to Give and Less to Lose.

Dear reader, if you’ve been hanging with me for a while, you know I’m in total denial.

Yep, still deluding myself into thinking that living to 112 1/2 years makes sense.

As my chronology has moved into my 9th decade, some of my physiology doesn’t seem to have signed on for the trip. Or, at least it’s hinting that it’s gonna be a tough trip.

As you read this, I’m sitting in a recliner coming down from a Bier Block anesthesia of my left arm so a hand surgeon could remove the joint at the base of my thumb and somehow jury rig it so that in 12 weeks I can start playing guitar again and in 4 months grip a golf club again.

You can tell I’m thrilled.

Apparently, it’s a common procedure for my age cohort. Things do wear out.

Ever try functioning with only one thumb?  Some things won’t be going that well for the next few months.

The thumb isn’t alone!

In the meantime, some other parts are sending off signals that they may not be signing on for the cruise to super-centenarianism.

Left shoulder, left hip, left foot, left wrist. Don’t ask me to explain – maybe it’s because I voted for Trump (regretfully).

Regardless, the last couple of months have, more than any other time, reminded me that being an older person trying to impersonate a younger person isn’t fooling anybody, least of all my body parts.

Oh, I’m not abandoning denial. I find a strange comfort there. I’ll keep thinking about staying young and not growing old. And I’ll keep the repair thing going until the universe decides it’s time to take all those well-worn and recycled parts back.

Part of the fuel for the denial is the perhaps delusional feeling that what I do – and intend to do until the universe makes that call – brings value to somebody, somewhere, somehow.

Taking the sting out of old age.

Eric Weiner is an author and self-described “Philosophical Traveler and Recovering Malcontent” who writes on Medium.com. A few things in one of his recent posts (see it here) made me stop and think. For one:

“Old age is not a disease. It is not a pathology. It is not abnormal. It is not a problem. Old age is a continuum, and everyone is on it. We’re all aging all the time. You are aging right now as you read these words — and not any faster or slower than an infant or a grandfather.

As our future shrinks, other futures grow. Our unfinished business will be finished by others. This thought, perhaps more than any other, takes the sting out of old age.”

People like Mr. Weiner, with their apparent intellect and deep, critical thinking, tend to send me hurtling into that nomadic desert wandering in circles in what is my ADHD-infested mind.

I found myself thinking of how little what I do means much, in the general scope of eternity and life on this mudball.

That kinda stings.

Until I thought about what Weiner says about unfinished business being finished by others. As my future shrinks, other futures grow – and my business may be carried forward by others.

That sets a new bar for me.

Get on it, bucko – and stop wasting time!! Somebody will pick up the pieces. Just go break some things.

Somehow, I tied his thought to retirement (see desert reference above).

Surprise, surprise! Since I seem to have this thing about what this unnatural, illogical concept has become in our lives.

It struck me how so many traditional retirees end up in a swamp made up of boredom, irrelevance, isolation, and declining health. It occurred to me that retirement does become sort of the “ultimate casualty” for many as they stop the business of doing business that can be finished by others.

Doesn’t full-stop retirement stop that train of building on something bigger than oneself? Something that can be carried on?

Doesn’t self-indulgent consumerism keep us from having a chance to fulfill why we are placed on this planet?

I’m reminded of a speech that distinguished educator and author Dr. Mortimer Adler delivered to an insurance Million Dollar Roundtable of the National Association of Underwriters on the Queen Mary in 1962 (bolding is mine):

“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.”

The protagonist in Weiner’s article is a French woman, Simone de Beauvoir, the French novelist, philosopher, and feminist hero. She once said:

“There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence meaning — devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work.”

Let’s trade in the 20th-century relic that we’ve succumbed to –

Learn – Earn – Retire – Die

for –

Learn – Earn – Return

Any thoughts on this? We’d love your feedback. Drop us an email at gary@makeagingwork.com or leave a comment below.