San Luis Obispo has one of the cutest downtowns in California. A must try there if you are ever around is a Turkish pastry shop called Lokum. So, so good.
On a stroll to one of the many beaches there, I happened to come across a long-retired couple, likely in their seventies, voluntarily cleaning up the trash people left behind. Good on them.
So, I started chatting with them to find out more about their life and how retirement is going for them. They said they have never been busier. They restore 100-year-old musical instruments which started out as a hobby but has now become a full-on money-making gig. Folks from all over the world reach out to them for business.
And it is not like they retired and then they went looking for a hobby to fill their time. The husband, a mechanical engineer by training, was already tinkering with it while he was working, and he carried that into his retirement.
That is the way to do it. I know what I just described and what I am about to expand on is a first-world problem but now that we are here, I can see our lives segmented into three distinct phases. The first phase is mostly about play and school and eventually blossoming into a functioning adult.
Then we enter the workforce, oftentimes followed by marriage and possibly kids. This stretch by far is likely to be an intensely busy phase of our lives. We cannot ever wait to retire.
So, we do the requisite amount of planning to make retirement a reality and we retire.
But retire to what? There is only so much Netflix we can watch. There is only so much golf we can play. We’d eventually tire of all that we consider fun until we are in the thick of it.
And we don’t realize it yet, but work is not just about fulfilling our financial obligations. It becomes our identity. It is the first thing we get asked when we meet someone new. It provides us with a sense of meaning. It gives us a reason to wake up and fill our time with all the good that we are about to do in this world.
So, transitioning from a life with our calendars filled to the brim into a life of literal nothingness is not going to be fun. It is best we plan for that transition before we are already there.
Plus, with the continual rise in life expectancies, we could be retired more number of years than we spent working. And it is not just about money because with adequate planning, most folks reading this will be able to afford a life of nothingness, but would you really want that for decades on?
For the lucky few who have found their calling in the work they are already doing, life is great. They have no reason to look for an alternative. Granted, the workplaces of today are not as accommodative to older employees but that will change. Imagine letting all this experience and expertise go to waste.
But if you are in the camp where you want to try something new, there is this sweet little phase that’ll likely come in your fifties where the kids are off on their own and you have some breathing room to explore. That is your figuring out time but figure something out you must.
Because one of the surest ways to prevent and delay cognitive decline as we age is by keeping our brains active. And there is nothing better than work that gives us a shot at that.
Again, it doesn’t have to be work, work. It could be anything but sitting in front of the TV to kill time is not it.
Remain useful, feel youthful.
Thank you for your time.
Cover image credit – Greta Hoffman, Pexels