So, About Retirement

What I watched: “Retirement is redundant” by Catherine Rickwood. Presented at TEDxCanberra. Posted November 13, 2018.

I’m writing this from my “office” for the next two weeks in Palm Springs, California. I know, life is rough. But I needed to chill out and this was a good place to do that.

Somewhat related, since I recently left my longstanding corporate job, I stumbled upon this wonderful talk by Catherine Rickwood. I guess because I’ve searched online for “retirement” the last few months, the algorithm gods decided I should watch this talk. It’s one of my favorites of the many talks I’ve watched about retirement.

For the record, I’m no longer using the word retirement in my daily vernacular when referring to what I see more as a sabbatical than retirement. I needed a break from the day-to-day of corporate life. But by no means do I consider myself retired. There are so many things I want to do and retirement seems like an inaccurate word for my life going forward.

That attitude aligns nicely with Rickwood’s talk.

What is retirement? And why do we retire at all. The etymology, the origins, of the word retirement means to withdraw.

The origins of the word retirement doesn’t reflect what we typically consider retirement to be today. Of course, words morph and change meanings over time. That’s how language works. But I think it can be important to understand where words come from to better position how we see them in contemporary usage.

When pensions were first introduced (remember pensions, not enough people get those today) in the late 1800s/early 1900s, they were implemented for people who ceased working. Eligibility was typically for people age 65 or older. Back then, the average lifespan was not 65 years. Thus, most people worked all their lives.

Redundancy is discussed, and for my non-Australian readers, it means when an employer no longer needs a job to be done by anyone, or the employer becomes insolvent or bankrupt.

[Redundancy is a] reward for our years of hard work, contribution, or service, and a redundancy package is simply a means of compensating us for being sacked and considered no longer relevant or necessary. And whilst redundancy is possible at any age, it becomes particularly attractive at retirement age due to the financial windfall that often accompanies the experience. Retirement, pensions, redundancy. These words and our current behavior are typically associated with being in our 50s or 60s and no longer working. And yet, there's been a critical and structural demographic shift.

I’m 68. I plan to live until 100 or more and if the fates are willing, that will happen. Whether I live that long or not, the average lifespan has increased dramatically since the advent of the modern retirement concept.

Nowadays, in many countries we can plan to live on average into our 80s. If you’re a younger person, let’s say in your 20s, you can plan to live into your 90s or longer.

Retirement is peddled as the grabbing the golden ring dream. Lives of holidays, nightly meals out, sailing the sea, gardening, and other recreational activities abound when we think of retirement. Many of us buy into this retirement stereotype. If we do buy into it, is that limiting our potential?

Rickwood recounts her father dying at age 63 and it made me remember my own father. He retired from his corporate job in his 60s, but he didn’t stop working entirely in some capacity until well into his 80s. It kept his brain engaged. It kept him alive and vibrant. He kept learning. It kept him useful. It fostered human connections. It made him happier.

Most people don’t plan for retirement, assuming they’re in a work or social situation in which they can. Preparation is both emotional and financial. Sometimes when people retire, the novelty of days of golf or sitting on the porch are initially appealing, but they can quickly sour amid a day in and day out sameness. Some might like that. I contend most do not. They fall prey to a life that doesn’t guide them well per their internal happiness rudder.

Rickwood recalls meeting a couple who pursued what they thought would be their dream retirement years. Location change to a retirement community. Type of home they thought they wanted. Their idyllic future was in their sights. Sadly, it didn’t turn out that way. Utopian dreams are often just that, dreams. Theirs was unfortunately just a dream.

This is not a sell for a retirement village. Most Australians don't live in them, and the majority of people I speak with don't want to move into one. It's not my plan to move into one either. It's a cautionary tale of imagining a life based on stereotypical attitudes, beliefs, and advertising that sells us something that simply doesn't serve us anymore.

At one time, I might have bought into this stereotype, this peddled selling of a retirement life that doesn’t match up well with many people’s reality. Luckily, after much introspection, I don’t buy into it either.

The old three-phase paradigm of educate, work, retire at 60 or 65, relevant for our forebears and irrelevant today. It's time we stopped blindly walking the path of retirement because that's what previous generations have done. Why? Because retirement at 60 provides us with 20 or more or more years of life, of living, not dying.

Rickwood suggests it’s time to envision a different kind of future for our later years, a future that maximizes the gift of longer life many of us have been given.

We need to remove ageism as it relates to our work and social contribution lives. At 68, I know I’m as knowledgeable, capable, and skilled now as I was 10 or 20 years ago. More so actually.

Companies and organizations can embrace this reality and make possible new and creative ways of working. Actively recruit older workers. Create new job-sharing situations between younger and older workers. Implement more part-time work to enable and value older workers. Reconfigure jobs and work situations to better utilize older workers, which will also help younger workers who will benefit from the mentorship of older workers. Perhaps the rise of remote work can further empower such possibilities.  

Together we can create these new models for how to live our lives as we age.

I believe this. Having gray hair does not mean we’re part of a gray tsunami. Nor does it mean we become a burden on society. Becoming older does not mean we're technology illiterate, on a downhill decline to dementia and incontinence.

On the contrary. Every single one of us has a potential that's untapped, underutilized, and unappreciated by us, by our communities, by organizations, by government, by our culture. It's time to look at things differently.

Collectively we can figure out how to enable things like work sabbaticals (my life right now), educate ourselves throughout our lives (lifelong learning is where it’s at), frequent job changing, and participating in cutting-edge professions.

Yes, ageism is a thing. We need to confront it. Yes, our values change over time and we need to sync our current values with our work lives. And yes, we have knowledge, skills, and experience to contribute today that we did not 10, 15, or 30 years ago.

Fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion are real. Not living the stereotype we’re pummeled with daily is scary and difficult. New frontiers logically bring with them resistance. But new adventures are often far better than the well-worn path we’ve been on for much of our lives.

We may not know what we want to do when we stop working. But we do know we don't want to do what we've always done.

If you’re in or approaching your older years, or hopefully if you’re younger and you’re thinking about it now, it’s time to reframe “retirement” to something different, something more alive, something more fulfilling. We’ll benefit, and society will benefit.

It's time to paint a new life canvas, a live canvas covered in color, rich in texture, and imbued with imagination. Longer lives are a gift we've all been given regardless of gender, race, religion, sexuality, or ability. It spans all diversity inclusion issues.

Longer lives are for us all, I hope. I invite you to have a conversation about your life in a way that we usually don't. This idea invites you to think about your life differently at all ages and stages. The world has changed. Have you? How will you grasp this gift of a longer life? How will you reimagine life, individually, in your organizations? We have a responsibility to create the change about how we live these longer lives. Ultimately, we all have a potential to be greater, much greater, than the age stereotypes. Retirement is redundant. Aging, that's living!

I’m going to shut down my laptop on my resort-room patio “office” as I bask in “retirement” and go enjoy the beautiful weather. I hope you have a wonderful day.

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