Do you know that feeling when you have maybe been down in the weeds for a while, living your life in the day-to-day. Then you look up and something that seemed far off on the horizon, maybe not even visible, is suddenly directly in view?
I’ve just recently had this experience with ‘retirement’. Friends and peers who are pretty close to me in age are suddenly talking about retiring, actively putting a timeline to it, or are stepping into this new world. One of my closest high school friends who has spent his life working on sustainability told me that he thinks he can now retire when he chooses. A former neighbor in his mid 50s just retired from being an emergency doctor. Friends whose kids have completed college, have quit their jobs and are travelling the world. As I started noticing this happening, I started asking others whether it was on their minds, and for a lot of folks it is. Not only those older than me but also younger. I feel a bit caught off guard. Similar to when friends started having babies eons before I had even begun to think about whether or not I wanted to become a parent – let alone taking the steps to get there!!
After a moment or two of panic I started to get curious… we talk about retirement as thought it is one thing, but in every conversation I’ve had it’s meant something different to the person I was talking to. Sometimes quite radically.
For some it’s what I thought of retirement when I was a child – ‘older’ people stepping out of the work world, to play more golf, travel, volunteer, have time with grandchildren etc. Others are seeing it more as what I would call a sabbatical, planning to take a few years off and then reapply to a job, maybe in a completely different sector. Some friends want to work but on their own schedules. Freelance or part time so they can take longer holidays or work remotely. For some it’s about following a dream that they know is unlikely to pay the bills and they don’t want to feel the pressure to equate success with making money. Each answer has felt really different. And personal.
I don’t think of myself as retired. But by some of these people’s criteria I think I would be. And by other’s not at all – I have a huge amount of flexibility in when and how I work. My ‘work’ is also my passion and I wouldn’t want to stop doing it even if I could. But I do still have to help with the bills and I don’t think I’m going to have the freedom to stop for quite some time.
I’ve come away from this mini investigation thinking that the key question to ask myself (and those I love) is less about when I want to retire and more asking what do I think being retired or in retirement would allow me to do that I can’t do now. Maybe a follow up enquiry is to ask what I might be able to do right now to allow for more of that to happen in the present. Rather than waiting for a magical state of being.
Regardless of how we are seeing or dreaming about our retirement, I think the term no longer fits the state. Retirement, coming from the French word retirer meaning to pull back or withdraw, is not what any of the conversations I’ve been having has been about. If anything it’s more about people wanting to re-engage with the world, with their lives – just on different terms. Would ‘re-engagement’ or ‘re-orientation’ (or even ‘reboot’!) be a better term?
I’d love to hear from others what you are thinking about ‘retirement’, regardless of how close or far off it seems to you. Are you looking forward to it or does it come with anxiety? Do you have a better word than ‘retirement’?