ChangeFamily/CommunicationReflectionJuly 10, 20170Should You Retire Or Keep Working? Do Both

Ever since 1934, when the Social Secu­ri­ty admin­is­tra­tion estab­lished 65 as the “offi­cial” nation­al retire­ment age, most of us have assumed that at some­where around 65, we’d stop doing paid work. And even though the aver­age 65-year-old these days has both a con­sid­er­ably greater life expectan­cy and much improved health com­pared to his or her 1934 coun­ter­part, our asso­ci­a­tion with 65 as the age of retire­ment remains. And that’s true even though we baby boomers aren’t adher­ing to it: only 1 in 4 boomers are ful­ly retir­ing from paid work by 65. As has often been the case with us as a gen­er­a­tion, we’re try­ing to fig­ure out a dif­fer­ent way to do things.

When I turned 65 recent­ly, I did­n’t expect it would have much impact on me, since I gen­er­al­ly don’t think of myself as being any par­tic­u­lar age. So I was sur­prised to find myself think­ing a lot about work­ing and not work­ing, and how I intend­ed to approach the next phase of my life. Even though I knew I did­n’t want to stop work­ing any time soon, I noticed that I also did­n’t want to keep work­ing at the same pace I’d been work­ing for the last 45 years. I had already decid­ed to work some­what less start­ing this year — I had told peo­ple that I was “cut­ting back to full time.” They’d laugh, but it was pret­ty accu­rate: I’m exper­i­ment­ing with work­ing around 40–45 hours a week, rather than 50–60 hours a week.

But I could feel there was some deep­er issue not being addressed by that deci­sion, and I was­n’t sure what it was. I called Lorie, a won­der­ful ther­a­pist and all-around wise per­son who has helped me enor­mous­ly through times of major change over the past ten years, and told her what I was feel­ing and think­ing. In a series of con­ver­sa­tions, she helped me see that I was want­i­ng to carve a new path for myself: that I felt con­strained by what I saw as the lim­it­ed and lim­it­ing expec­ta­tions for women at 65 rel­a­tive to work. I believe that soci­ety expects that women, if they do keep work­ing after 65, will do it in a kind of invis­i­ble and gen­teel old-lady­ish way: part-time, in a sit­u­a­tion that does­n’t require or afford a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty or pow­er. (As an exam­ple, when I told a 30-some­thing friend that I was strug­gling to fig­ure out my work path for the next decade, she sug­gest­ed that per­haps I could teach class­es at our local library.) And the gen­er­al expec­ta­tion for us as retirees is that we will focus on tak­ing care of our fam­i­lies, on our old-lady hob­bies, or on doing good works.

Nei­ther of those paths appealed to me. In my con­ver­sa­tions with Lorie, I real­ized that I need­ed to “go off road,” to carve out a per­son­al post-65 career path that works for me and those I love, and that may not ful­fill any of those expectations.

And, as it turns out, what works for me is a life that includes the best of both worlds. In the world of work, I’ve real­ized that I’m doing the best work of my life, and I want to keep doing that. I’m braver, wis­er, clear­er, more expe­ri­enced, and at the same time more flex­i­ble, com­pas­sion­ate and patient than ever before, and I intend for my clients and my col­leagues to get the ben­e­fit of that. And in the world of retire­ment, I find I’m cher­ish­ing time with my hus­band, chil­dren, grand­chil­dren, and oth­er loved ones in a new and deep­er way, know­ing that my remain­ing time on earth is less than the time already passed. At the same time, I find that I need more time for reflec­tion and recu­per­a­tion in order to be at my best — and that I’m able to appre­ci­ate those rest­ing peri­ods more than I ever have before.

So I’m work­ing and retir­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. When I’m work­ing, it’s full-on, all-in: offer­ing the best of who I am in deep and pow­er­ful part­ner­ship with my clients and col­leagues. When I’m retir­ing, it’s full-on, all-in: 100% lux­u­ri­at­ing in play, rest, trav­el, the love of those I love. I sus­pect the pro­por­tions of the two will con­tin­ue to shift as I age: more time retired, less time work­ing. But the depth of com­mit­ment to each will remain. That sense of doing what­ev­er I’m doing with full joy and com­mit­ment is what res­onates for me.

If you find your­self ask­ing these kinds of ques­tions — as I assume you might be, hav­ing read this far — my advice to you is not to adopt my solu­tion or any­one else’s, but to find your own. Your life is pre­cious, and it’s a great gift to have arrived in your 60s with your health and spir­it intact. Be con­scious in decid­ing how to take advan­tage of this gift you’ve been giv­en, so that at the end of your days you feel sat­is­fied that you’ve lived the life you most want­ed to live.