Why Retire?
by: Lisa Taylor
Boomers everywhere are speaking up about work and retirement. If common wisdom says we should stop working around age 55 and life expectancy is now reaching the 80s, then we will spend more than 25 years “in retirement.” We need new approaches towards career planning for this phase of life. Boomers don’t want to continue doing what they do now, but they also don’t want to retire.
Last fall, Globe and Mail columnist, Margaret Wente declared that “Andy Rooney had the right idea about retirement” when he worked right up until the month before he died at age 92. She suggested that retirement as it is currently defined is an empty, meaningless time and that “Freedom 55” is wildly unappealing. Wente discusses how she, like Rooney, has a career that she hopes to continue in until she dies.
Within two days, over 187 people wrote in to comment on this perspective of retirement. Many noted that this approach is great for people who love their job, but not for those with boring, soul-sucking work. What comes across loud and clear is that Canadians over 50 don’t want to continue in their current jobs and are wondering how they’ll find new ones.
People at any age can re-evaluate their needs and harness their talents to do something they love. Just because you are in your 50s doesn’t mean you have to stop working. You may just want to do something completely different from what you have done before. It may need to fit into a more leisurely lifestyle. Or, perhaps, it must accommodate renewed family obligations as you help care for grandchildren. Whatever your situation, there is a right combination of meaningful work and leisure for you.
In a recent TED talk, Jane Fonda shared this view, indicating that life after mid-life is "a developmental stage of life with its own significance as different from mid-life as adolescence is from adulthood."
Accountants do become Book Reviewers. Marketing Managers do open boutiques. Sales Executives do become Professional Fundraisers. And CFOs make fantastic Corporate Intrapreneurs. Your job in adolescence didn't tie you to a career in mid life. Why should your mid life career commit you to activities in your Encore years?
Stanford economist Jon Shoven declares the way we look at old-age to be old-fashioned. He suggests that, rather than considering everyone over a certain age as being “old,” we should work from end-of-life backwards. Basically, we should reserve the term old-age for those who are facing mobility, health, cognitive and other challenges that impair their ability to be active and contributing members of society. What a great way to think about aging. According to this model, you aren’t old until you are... well... old!
For some, this definition of retirement may describe the last 10 or 15 years of life. For Andy Rooney, it lasted one month. Ms. Wente and I certainly agree that he had the right idea.
Jane Fonda, TEDx Women
Posted in: Career, Work-Life Balance
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