Retirement: Friend or foe?

What will your retirement years be like:
Spectacular finale, or sputtering fizzle?

Retirement. Seldom has one word evoked such delight and fear at the same instant. For many in my Baby Boomer generation, that’s the case. And every day an average of 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring.

How did you feel when you read or hear “retirement”? Excited? Confused? Filled with anticipation? Filled with anxiety?

Last week a friend told me about a man who confided that the prospect of imminent retirement filled him with dread. “How long does it take to die?” the man had asked him in earnest, implying once his working career came to an end, so would his reason for living.

What a dismal perspective: Work your tail off for 30-40 years, apply for Social Security, gather up whatever retirement savings you’ve managed to accumulate, buy an annuity, and then curl up in your bed, waiting for your heart to cease beating.

There seem at least two central problems involved:

1) For many people, life and work seem synonymous. When asked, “What kind of work do you do?”, we interpret that to mean, “Who are you?” Careers and vocations often shape our sense of identity.

2) Retirement has come to mean you stop working; you no longer have anything to contribute; or like it or not, you must commence a “vacation” that lasts the rest of your life.

In actuality, none of these is true – or at least shouldn’t be true. Work consumes many of our waking hours, and if we’re fortunate enough to enjoy it, work can give fulfillment. It also can enhance our sense of purpose. But it shouldn’t define us to the point that the end of work amounts to the end of meaningful life.

Although it would seem as if “retirement” should appear somewhere in the Bill of Rights, the idea of retiring – at least as it’s known today – hardly existed prior to the end of World War II. I know, that’s a long time ago. But for most of recorded history, people continued to work until no longer physically able. Idyllic retirement notions of rocking chairs, shuffleboard, steering a Winnebago cross-country, and day-after-day golf were unimagined by our ancestors.

This isn’t to say some kind of transition isn’t in order as we age. Getting older typically means reduced strength and stamina, but that doesn’t mean we must stop working entirely or no longer have anything of value to offer society.

Interestingly, the Bible says little about retirement. The only reference, as we use the term today, concerned Levites, the Israelite priests: “but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer” (Numbers 8:25). Even then it adds, “They may assist their brothers in performing their duties…but they themselves must not do the work….” So even after retirement, the priests were to mentor and consult with their younger peers.

Hopefully soon I’ll start collecting my well-earned Social Security benefits. These days the Federal government calls this an “entitlement,” and I agree in one sense: I and my employers over my more than 45-year working career have paid many thousands into my account under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). So I’m entitled to start receiving what I’ve set aside. But that doesn’t mean I can no longer work – or no longer have worth.

In a future post I’ll suggest ways retirement – the rest of your life – can become the best of your life. But for now, instead of envisioning your retirement years like a fizzling firecracker, imagine them like the grand finale of a fireworks show. All that’s gone before is just preparation for a big, spectacular finish.