Vol. 59, No. 9 — September 1978 —
Creative Retirement
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Is there life after employment? Yes - about
2,000 extra hours a year of it. And those hours may be empty
or full of satisfaction depending on how people approach their
later years. The "golden age" of life is elusive. But then,
you have to explore to find gold ...
For years people did their very best to troop happily along
the road to retirement by reminding themselves time and again
that something vague but grand called the "golden age" of
life lay at the end of it. For years, too, they felt distinctly
apprehensive about what they would actually find when they
arrived. They feared that their later years might be dull
and lonely, perhaps downright miserable. And all too often
these fears helped to make themselves come true.
Today the approach to retirement is changing mainly because
the perception of it is changing. People are beginning to
look forward to it with confidence and even excitement. They
seem to see ahead of them years that really could be golden.
Increasingly, what they see is what they get.
Experts in the field are talking about a "retirement revolution".
At least part of any such revolution is due to the discovery
that over the years the accepted picture of old age has been
distorted by flaws in research techniques. A fog of misconceptions
has formed simply because researchers conducted so many of
their studies in homes for the elderly. These homes are natural
attractions for research because they offer an almost limitless
supply of subjects who have all the time in the world to answer
questions.
The catch is that the residents of such homes are hardly
typical of retired people in general. They make up only 10
per cent or so of the total retired population of North America.
Their circumstances make them less likely to be fit and active
than most elderly people. Older people in good physical and
mental condition tend to avoid the traditional "old folks
homes", preferring to remain on their own.
The result has been the accumulation of a sizeable body
of research which over-emphasizes the limitations of age and
exaggerates its uncertainties to people approaching retirement.
Widespread efforts are now being made to set the picture straight.
The picture has also been changed by the fact that most
people now live longer, and are in better physical shape,
than formerly. Advances in medicine have made it likely that,
as they climb into their later years, they will be healthier
than their mothers and fathers were at the same age.
But the true heart of the "retirement revolution" is psychological.
A new optimism is spreading about what is in store for people
in their older age. People are able to anticipate an interesting
and fruitful retirement because, more and more, they are planning
for it. And they are planning for it earlier and earlier in
their lives.
When you dig beneath the surface of someone's gloomy attitude
towards retirement, you almost always find a fear of the unknown
near the bottom. Dig deeper, and you find that the future
usually is unknown because it is unplanned. It is unplanned,
frequently, because people are inclined to put retirement
out of their minds until the last minute. Why? Because, say
the experts, they link it with death.
The connection with death is valid enough to people who
suffer unhappy retirements because they have neglected to
plan for their future. Who knows how many people die before
their time merely because they have no particular urge or
reason to live? The idea of a planned retirement is not to
live longer, but to ensure that life in its later stages is
as fulfilling as possible. Still, this fulfilment may bring
with it a longer life, because it keeps life worthwhile.
Planning for retirement ideally should be as important to
a life as planning for a working career or an education. Many
people in the western world today will spend at least as much
time on this earth after they have ceased to work formally
as they did before they began. A good way to think of retirement
is as a stage of life which is as controllable as any other.
Think of that question which echoed through your childhood:
"What are you going to do when you grow up?" Well, what are
you going to do when you retire?
It takes thought and experimentation to find out, and the
time to start this is when you are in your forties or earlier.
A successful retirement plan looks far beyond one's obvious
financial needs. It must take account of the psychological,
social and spiritual needs that develop as a person gets older.
Like all good planning, it must aim towards particular goals.
Consider the difference planning could make in nourishing
one's interests in later life through hobbies, sports and
friendships. The prospect of a shortage of friends makes a
good example of the unpleasant facts of life in retirement
which some people choose to overlook. Friendships in our kind
of society tend to revolve around work. What happens when
a person is no longer working? Dr. Sylvia McDonald, director
of the "Retirement Centre" at Marianopolis College in Montreal,
tells the sad story of a man who retired and then trekked
back to his old plant every single lunch hour so that he could
be with his friends.
It is well known that loneliness is one of the biggest problems
of growing old. Making friends outside of the sphere of work
is one way to guard against it. Friendships are commonly based
on common interests; so preparing for retirement means finding
new interests that will bring new friends.
One glorious fling - then a void and a glut of time
The main point to remember is that retirement will open
up an immense time gap in your life - more than 2,000 extra
free hours a year for the average worker. Perhaps "free" time
is the wrong description; for some it can be a terrible weight.
This is particularly so among people who make the mistake
of concentrating their retirement plans on one glorious fling
- a cruise, for instance. They bask in four or five weeks
of pleasure, and then return home to a void and a glut of
time.
Idle time can be a poisonous commodity in a relationship.
Couples may find the new constant closeness hard to take.
Wives strain for patience; but who is so saintly as to bear
with equanimity the helpful comments of a husband who has
nothing else to do but hang around home fretting because the
hall table hasn't been dusted or a bed hasn't been made?
Planning ahead for a couple of new hobbies may help to bridge
the gap; but hobbies in themselves are not the complete answer.
Dr. McDonald of Marianopolis, a cheerful nun with a Ph.D.
degree in modern languages who will soon be 68 years old,
stresses: "There is no point in simply filling your time."
What is really needed, she says, is the ability to lead
a creative life, and this is something a person should start
developing many years before retirement. It means cultivating
an awareness and an appreciation of the people and things
you encounter day in and day out.
When you walk to the bus stop or to the parking lot, notice
the types of trees, or the old windows in the building across
the street, or the way the wind before a storm stirs up the
leaves in the gutter. There is a good chance that you will
turn yourself on to a lasting love of walking, which qualifies
as an excellent pastime at any age, but especially in later
life. Walking stimulates both mind and body and is something
you can enjoy at any time, alone or with any number of people.
And for any duration, from the short spurt down to the store
to pick up a newspaper to the robust tramp that takes you
out for an hour or two.
Making an investment in the life you will be
living in 40
years
Old pastimes should be re-examined from a fresh point of
view - take reading, for example. Try moving into a brand
new area. If you have always leaned toward novels, try shifting
to biographies - and don't stop there. Plunge into a field
that has been buzzing around the fringes of your mind for
years, or into something brand new to you such as the history
of Italy or how they grow oranges. If you are too busy now
to take up fresh subjects, keep a notebook and jot down interests
that pop into you life only for a moment but deserve a closer
look.
Then there are new interests which you might consider developing:
the list is endless, from astronomy to photography to epicurean
cooking. The thing to remember is that you should get a start
on them, even if only a bit of dabbling, well before you are
about to retire. It only makes practical sense to know what
is available and what you will or will not like, but the reasoning
is also partly psychological. With the feeling that at long
last you will have the time to devote to something that enthuses
you, your retirement will loom ahead as a pleasant prospect.
It is something akin to the trick some vacationers use to
head off post-holiday blues: before they leave home, they
get theatre or baseball tickets for a date shortly after their
return.
Consider the importance of planning early - very early -
in the field of sports. There are squash players who keep
in shape and who are still going at it up into their seventies.
But they are exceptions and, if you have the opportunity,
you are better off to ease into something at least a little
less strenuous, perhaps tennis or golf. The 30-year-old "jock"
who gives up his regular Saturday afternoon game of touch
football in favour of golf is making an investment in the
life he will be leading 40 years later. He is doing something
else that is very important: helping to make his move towards
retirement a gradual process. A retirement which consists
of a collection of abrupt changes can be very upsetting. In
fact it can kill.
The most vital concern of all in retirement planning is
your health. Your golf game will be worth nothing if you barely
have the energy to haul yourself out of bed in the mornings.
The way to good health in retirement is a matter of the right
exercise and diet throughout your younger and, especially,
your middle years. Doctors believe that diet usually takes
care of itself, whether you are young or old, if you get some
sort of regular exercise and have medical check-ups. Any form
of exercise, from the hardest to the mildest, is beneficial
in later life.
Mental exercise is just as vital. The mind can grow slack
when a person no longer has to concentrate on working. This
process is aided by the myth that the mental faculties of
human beings start declining sharply after a certain age.
In fact, one group of American psychologists has found that
the mind does not achieve its fullest powers until the age
of 60 and declines only very slowly thereafter. But a mind
certainly will go into decline in any stage of life if there
is nothing to keep it alert.
Older people have a mental plus. They possess the great
accumulated knowledge. They have a sense of perspective. They
have wisdom. And today their qualities and abilities are being
recognized.
Your time, not your money, can be your
most valuable contribution
Obviously retirement ought to include many productive years
of using one's talents, intelligence, knowledge and abilities.
Life expectancy statistics show that the Canadian male of
65 today may expect to live to 79; the average female of 65
may live to 82. That is too big a chunk of time to spend loafing.
After a lifetime of working, the image of sitting and rocking
may appear from a distance to be an attractive way of life.
But wait until you get into it; you may even come to miss
the shattering sound of the alarm clock. You will almost certainly
miss the challenge of your old job, no matter how routine
it may now seem.
There are endless contributions which older people can make,
not in spite of their age but because of it. But this, too,
takes planning in order to find some project that will allow
you to pass along some of the mass of knowledge and skills
and common sense acquired over the years. Perhaps you may
get involved in teaching in a community endeavour that includes
youth activities. You may be able to pass along your years
of experience in one of your hobbies. There are many projects
in which the most valuable contribution, by far, is not money
but time. On retirement you will be in a position, maybe for
the first time in your life, of actually having plenty of
time to spare.
For people who have spent their lives in business, Canada
offers a remarkable opportunity to help others by giving time
to CESO, the Canadian Executive Service Overseas. It is run
by Canadian business leaders and it supplies the services
of retired executives to businesses or governments in developing
nations.
Finding worthwhile outlets for one's abilities after retirement
may be just what executives need, because retirement generally
comes as a much bigger jolt to somebody in management than
to a blue-collar or clerical worker. The life of an executive
has an artificial side. He has an importance which he loses
when he leaves his company. One moment it's Yes, sir,
right away, sir; the next he's just another citizen.
This can be terribly disorientating for hard-working executives
who have made the office their whole lives.
Fortunately, more and more companies and employee organizations
today are recognizing that their responsibility to their people
reaches into retirement. They are offering pre-retirement
training courses dealing with the psychological, social and
financial preparations for retired life. This is almost a
complete turn-around from the time, only a decade ago, when
retirement was a word rarely mentioned in some companies.
Often the first time the company and the employee came face
to face over retirement was when the personnel department
sent along a request for a signature on some pension form
and noted, by the way, that next Friday's cheque would be
the last.
Anticipate living much longer than the
actuarial tables
say
Finances, of course, form a crucial part of retirement planning.
It is also a very difficult part when it comes to specifics,
both because each person's circumstances are such an individual
matter and because, over a period of a couple of decades,
the economy is liable to change a great deal. For instance,
a person who plans to sell the house upon retirement and use
the proceeds to pay for an apartment must take note of the
possibility that he or she may live many more years than expected
- which is fine except that the rent may triple. One of the
basic rules of retirement planning is to anticipate living
much longer than actuarial tables might lead you to expect.
But there is a bright corner of the financial picture that
is worth bearing in mind: your day-to-day expenses are likely
to drop noticeably. You will spend less on lunches, on gasoline
or public transportation, and probably less on clothes and
entertainment. You may also save money because, for the first
time, you will be able to take a couple of hours to make your
own repairs to the toaster or the front porch.
The chances are that you will even bask in the satisfaction
of the accomplishment and wonder why you never tackled simple
tasks like that when you were younger. You will probably wonder
what was wrong with yourself all those years.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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