Earlier life, pre-retirement, is built around purpose. Childhood is for growth and learning; adolescence for education and establishing an identity; adulthood for work and raising a family. But what is retirement for? In the past, this question was unasked and often irrelevant – the period was but a brief respite from a lifetime of toil. And, for the many with no financial resources, there was no holiday, only a slow and gradual reduction in the intensity of work. Retirement is a modern concept, the outcome of better medical services and universal pensions.
But having been handed an extra, work-free, extension to life, we are unsure what to do with it. This is also a dilemma for governments. There is no philosophy of retirement. There are plenty of guidelines for successful careers, for productive work, for raising children, for maintaining relationships and so on. But none for how to plan, develop or live a rewarding life in retirement. Perhaps, given our knowledge and experience we are expected to be able to arrange this for ourselves. However, from talking to many people, prior to, or already in retirement, this change in life comes as a shock. What can I do? What should I do? What is there to do? Leaving a previous time when there was a purpose to life based on work and family, suddenly there is none.
The perennial question of ‘What is life for?’ can be set aside when there is a need to be educated, an income to be earned and children to be raised. The question seems to be answered for us by circumstances, or we are too involved or too tired to even consider it. But the chickens come home to roost in retirement. And there is no one who can answer it for us. Retirement takes a lot of thought, and diversions such as expensive holidays only put off the inevitable. One, perhaps brutal way, to think this through is to ask yourself: ‘What would I like them to say in my eulogy about what I did in retirement?’
Renaissance not Retirement 