Archive for category: Retirement

“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.

A question came up recently on Quora.com that intrigued me and motivated me to put the pencil to paper with a response. The question asked:

“At what age is your prime age?”

Fertile ground for thought and opinion, don’t you agree?

So I stepped up with my two cents worth. Here’s an expanded version.

There would seem, to me, to be two different types of prime: physical and psychological.

Physical prime is easier to define. Generally, we reach our physical prime in our mid-to-late 20’s and a gradual decline begins from there. My understanding is that this physical decline in terms of muscle mass and strength really begins to accelerate in the mid-to-late-thirties and picks up serious speed as we approach our fifties unless offset through strength training.

Mental prime may be more elusive as it would seem to be unique to each of us and have so many dimensions. Your psychological/emotional prime is likely to look different and have a different timeline than mine or everyone else’s.

I did some research and found this interesting article on the topic published in 2017 by Business Insider:

Here Are The Ages You Peak at Everything Throughout Life

Here’s the chart that they developed which shows interesting prime ages for a broad selection of phenomena:

As the article emphasized, this is not a controlled study and the points mark the middle of an age range. So these are averages. That’s important for you, my readers, to know because you are all above average on so many levels.

Some things are pretty obvious. For instance, you’re 60 and deciding to learn to speak Russian. Good luck with that. It appears you are 5 decades too late to expect significant results from that worthwhile mental-gymnastics effort.

Double-dipping “Life Satisfaction”

It’s interesting to note, from the chart, that life satisfaction pops up peaking in two spots: age 23 and again at 69 but with psychological wellbeing peaking at 82. This is all according to science.

At 79, I honestly don’t remember what my life satisfaction level was at 23. I was between stints in college and mostly a “wandering generality” into muscle cars and bar hopping. Maybe it’s saying that there is some life satisfaction in wanderlust which was a pretty popular lifestyle with the reprobates I hung with in mid-1960s Cheyenne, Wyoming. Fortunately, sanity returned and I went back for my third and final run at a college degree (P.S. I succeeded). My biggest contribution through that meandering stretch was to the economic welfare of pubs and gas stations.

I will, on the other hand, attest to there being greater life satisfaction at 69 – and in the 10 years since – than all the earlier times in my life. But then, that’s just me. It was in my seventh decade that I grew to realize that my “good spots” came when I stayed true to my birthright of uniqueness and didn’t succumb to other people’s opinions and the pressure of cultural expectations. Unfortunately, it took me that long to recognize and acknowledge that uniqueness – or, as I wrote last week, my “inclinations.”

That discovery, in and of itself, is not an easy or common one. So few of us ever acknowledge and honor our true inborn giftedness. Our culture snags us with our outdated educational system, pounds us with cultural expectations, and hooks us into a life built around comparison instead of our uniqueness.

I’m reminded of the article written by Australian hospice nurse, Bronnie Ware, who spent many years with patients who were in the last few weeks of their lives and who had gone home to die.  In her article “Regrets of the Dying, she shares the five most common regrets that they expressed in their final days. Far and away, the most common regret was:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Age 82 is a head-fake!

I don’t expect anyone in my cohort to claim they haven’t passed their physical peak. They know my bull**** filter, albeit not great, wouldn’t let that one through.

But what about that “psychological wellbeing” peak at 82? Seems kinda early, don’t ya think? Couldn’t we move that one out another decade or two – and make it a really brief peak, like overnight, maybe? As in “die young, as late as possible.” Sort of like the Okinawans have tended to do – live happy and purposeful close to 100 and then check out with virtually no morbidity period. Unlike we Americans with our average 10 1/2 years of morbidity.

What’s the Okinawan magic? Prior to being invaded and infected with western culture, it was mostly a strong sense of purpose built around community and family combined with non-western lifestyle diet and movement choices. Historically, Okinawans haven’t relinquished their identity and sense of purpose to retirement – they have no word for the concept in their vocabulary.

So maybe we move that 82 to 92 or 97 or – heaven forbid – to 102. Rather than hopping off the cliff from labor-to-leisure at the “obligatory 65”, we turn our retirement into a purposeful, service-filled period that is balanced with labor, leisure, and learning. Your thing, built around your “inclinations”, on your timetable, at your speed, in whatever form you choose but with an eye to changing something that needs changing.

Why not? Remember, these are all averages – and you’re not!

Hope you are coming out of this COVID year unscathed. We appreciate you sticking around and giving us a read. Let us know your thoughts on this peak issue. Scroll down and leave a comment or drop me an email at gary@makeagingwork.com

Oh, by the way. I just launched my new website for the other part of my life – my resume writing, LinkedIn presence development, and career transition and retirement coaching. Give us a visit over at www.turningpointcareerservices.com and schedule a call if you would like to discuss any of the services I’m offering.

I remember how that quote rocked my world a few decades ago when I first read it in my mid-50s. I was in that life phase characteristic of most American males where there is this sinking realization there are more yesterdays than tomorrows and the “is-this-all-there-is” questions start surfacing. 

Am I relevant?

Will I ever be relevant?

What is relevant?

Does anyone care that I’m here? (News flash: Most don’t!)

You would think that by 45 or 50 or 55 that we would have most things about life figured out. But, we don’t. We’ve been too busy being heads-down, meeting cultural expectations.

Maybe the timing of this speed bump is built into the male genetic arrangement. Women don’t seem to bother with it so much. More likely, it’s because we’ve pulled up short of the cultural goalposts expected at that age – image, title, boys toys, neighborhood, retirement account, etc.

And there is that sinking feeling that there isn’t enough time or enough gas left in the tank to catch up.

The hour-long funeral procession

I remember thinking that there must have been some dignitary that passed but I hadn’t heard or read of any.

I turned back to the paperwork on my desk and stood up a full 30 minutes later to discover the funeral procession still streaming by.

Over an hour passed before the last car and trailing motorcycle cop passed.

As far as I knew, the governor was still alive, as was the mayor. And I hadn’t heard of the passing of any mega-church pastors. Or any Broncos/Rockies/Nuggets/Avalanche sports heroes. Or any of our small collection of Colorado billionaires.

Who was this person?

I still don’t know. The obits revealed nothing out of the ordinary.