It seems to me that everyone who is thinking about retiring should take some time to think about the future. When we retire, we’re not just entering another phase of life: we’re at the beginning of a new journey into an entirely new and very different territory. The closest analogy I can think of is the transition from my educational life in university into the world of work and career. No matter what I thought it would be like and no matter how much information and advice I got, it was all new. My choices had a serious and profound impact on my life over the following decades.
The transition from working for a living into what has euphemistically been called ‘the second half’ is, I believe, even more profound. For me, the second half is a kind of shorthand for whatever time we have left. And according to the statisticians, most of us will be living for almost as long after we retire as we spent in our entire career. That’s why it’s so important to calculate your retirement savings early to ensure you have enough for your future plans. A ROTH IRA calculator or any other calculator can help you to do this, meaning you’ll know for sure what you need to save to reach your goals.
The first thing to consider in approaching retirement is whether you want to retire at all. Most of us have a choice in the matter, although some may need to continue working out of financial necessity while others may be forced out. Spending some time in self-reflection can have us stop to think about why we are retiring and allow us to consider a host of practical, psychological and emotional implications of what our lives can be-or not be-once we retire. I advocate a positive approach that focuses on leaving FOR something more compelling and empowering-a larger purpose or calling-than whatever we think we are leaving.
Most of us have a long list of things we don’t like about working, as well as a long list of things we do like. People who are planning to retire to get away from the negative things (such as office politics or lack of control over one’s schedule) will almost certainly have to deal with these issues in other forms after retirement. Retiring to ‘get away’ from work is a sure way to drag the negative aspects into what could and should be the most free and creative years of our lives. Far better to make peace within the workplace before you leave, rather than see retirement as an escape and then need to deal with the bullshit later. On the other hand, when we leave our work, we leave behind a network of friends and support and behavior patterns that have probably become second nature to us. Most of the things we like will be missing. If we consciously re-create them in some other form, we can avoid drifting into a mood of loss and living in a context of the ‘good old days’.
My experience suggests that planning for your retirement should not be an extension of a goal-oriented, linear, analytical process. The process we used in planning our university curriculum based on what we anticipate we’ll need for our career won’t work. The process that guided us in our careers when we ‘matched’ our likes, interests and talents into a fixed structure of job descriptions and tasks won’t work either. Better this time round to plan for retirement as an exercise in creating the future, beginning with a powerful personal vision of who we want to be in the coming years and what we wish to contribute.
While our activities in retirement may vary widely-from learning and leisure to second (or third) careers and community service-there seems to be one unifying theme.
Make the most of whatever time we have left.
Obviously, there are a million goals we might set for ourselves. The ones that continue to be the organizing principles for my life are health, happiness, self-expression, love and feeling valued. If I find an abundance of these experiences in the coming years, I will die feeling that my life was full to the end and that it was all worth living. I am creating the end of my life as the prime of my life. The conversations I am having today, as well as the decisions I am making as I retire, will probably determine whether I am dreaming or whether I am on the way to making my dream come true.