Retirement Planning - Retirement Is Hard Work

I know it sounds dumb, but retiring is hard work. The average person spends eight hours a day working, about fifty percent of our waking day and, as a result, the thing we call our job, our career, our livelihood represents a huge portion of our identity, of who we are. For most people, working not only derives a source of financial support but a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of camaraderie, an intellectual and emotional challenge, a source of community, and many other benefits and experiences that enhance our lives, our personhood. In sum, working represents a big component, in many cases the biggest, of who we are as a person; “soul” excepted, of course.

Retirement, a career-ectomy, amputates that big component of our identity. Rebuilding that identity, or re-assessing what “identity” means post-retirement, is the hard work. Even painful. And why many are reluctant, even afraid, to retire. What will I do? What will I accomplish? How can I feel important again? Who am I going to talk about the Dodgers with while I get my coffee? All questions that swirl around the act of “hanging it up.” These are legitimate, scary, and difficult questions to face.

And the reconstructive surgery is no easy task, not only for the retiree, but also for the others in the retiree’s life. If I had a nickel for every time someone was told by his/her spouse something like the following,” you can retire whenever you want but I will see you at breakfast and at dinner. I have a life to live,” well, I could have retired a lot earlier.

Basically, the hard work of retiring begins with redefining who you are. To me, the key is realizing that “career” is more of a means to an end rather than the most important part of your identity. It helps if you have always taken this view but many don’t. Assuming you don’t, redefining “you” starts with realizing you are a spouse, a parent, a friend and much, much more. For many successful professionals, those other identities—which are clearly more important than having been a managing director at Goldman--have been diminished, even buried, by your perception of yourself as a big deal….and the time you had to spend being successful. This is no knock on success—you are working, you might as well make the most of it—but being successful takes time and that time commitment to our career often comes out of the time we need to be a better spouse, parent, etc.

And of this I am 100% sure, you are going to have to redefine success. After forty or fifty years of defining success in terms of raises, promotions, stock options, atta gals, accolades, adulation, relevance, etc., you will be forced to recalibrate. It’s much easier to look at the year-end bonus sitting in your brokerage account and, say, “Damn, I’m good.” It’s a lot harder to look yourself in the mirror and say,” Man, I am the best parent ever.”

So, if you are retiring, start with redefining what success means and get the heavy lifting out of the way.

Show A Little Faith.