A list lover’s guide to successful retirement
I’m not talking about retirement as ending a work career. I’m talking about it as developing a different state of mind after withdrawing from the chaos in the work-a-day world and abandoning unrealized dreams of fame and fortune.
The time before retirement is like planting a germinated seed that will develop roots and a stem capped with a bud. Retirement is the bud’s unfolding for its season of blooming.
I’ve known people who struggled with blooming before dying. This is for those who like guides. The steps don’t have to be fully accomplished in order before moving on, but they put a sense of order in what can be a confusing, stressful time of life.
Step one: Wholeheartedly leave your status and roles in the work-a-day world behind. Join an elite group of peers who’ve also gained wisdom through enduring life’s trials. Accept and trust your intuition as you follow your curiosity. Be flexible. Trust your ability to adjust to an unfolding future. In other words, approach the last half of life like you did the first day of kindergarten.
Step two: Accept the gradual changes taking place in your body and in your mind’s thought processes. Embrace your slowing reaction times and declining strength. Adjust to your reducing tolerance for alcohol and some foods. Prepare for possible changes in balance and coordination and hearing and vision. In other words, respect and live within your changing personal limits.
I took a refresher course for older drivers and changed my driving practices. I fell on the tennis court, with only minor scrapes and bruises. When I nearly fell again the first time I returned to the court, I retired from tennis but kept the same buddies. The fraternity of elders doesn’t coerce or intimidate its members to risk going beyond themselves.
Step three: Appreciate that needs and desires for intimacy, sensuality and sexuality endure for a lifetime. Reflect on beauty and intimacy and what it means to be fully male and female during aging. The ways and means of giving and receiving intimate pleasures can adapt to changing circumstances. Vulnerability, curiosity and openness are important challenges to explore, understand, and deal with.
Step four: Strengthen old and build new relationships by learning to love more freely, openly and fully. Curate virtues of compassion, patience and tolerance. Unload holdover vices like self-imposed isolation, cynicism and fear that corrupt freedom and lead to disappointment and resentment.
Step five: Retirement is in full bloom and ready to be shared with the world. It’s time to live what you love. Serve. Mentor. Create. Pay our ancestors’ debts forward by leaving immortal legacies for future generations.
Step six: As the bloom fades, interests narrow and strength and vigor decline. Now it’s time to become a family patriarch/matriarch and community elder, cherished for your wisdom. With solitude, reflection and learning from other’s your wisdom continues growing.
One challenge is having the courage to speak out when opportunities present themselves. Another is being wise, not cranky and dogmatic.
Step seven: When the bloom is gone it’s time to retreat to a life of contentment, grace and peace. My role model for this step died at 102. After surviving earlier life’s usual tumult and aging’s vicissitudes her motto was happiness is having nothing. She corresponded regularly with her grown children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. While she lived she was the revered repository for family information.
Step eight: The final challenge is saying goodbye and offering blessings to others. Letting go of attachments, death comes naturally.
This is my gift to readers.
Jim,
What ar e steps 9 & 10
Ned
No need to worry about them. All would be set in your life.