Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktSo I came across the article 6 reasons why you should not retire and, as someone that really looks forward to retiring, it got me thinking. Here are the 6 reasons:
1. There is no physical reason to retire.
2. Continued work can support healthy aging, including better physical and mental health.
3. Well-being and happiness are boosted when people are engaged in challenging and meaningful activities. Work is a major place to find such activities in our society.
4. Older people have rich experience and mentoring skills to help enrich the workplace experiences of younger colleagues.
5. Declining numbers of younger workers, courtesy of lower fertility rates, will raise the need to retain older employees in the workforce.
6. We need and like the money, and shorter retirements sharply cut the risk we will outlive our assets.
Well I read through these and…I still want to retire. Quite badly. Here is my response to these 6.
1) So what… Just because I am not forced into retirement by age or some other reason is not a good reason to keep working. Just because I can? I don’t think so.
2) If their idea of retirement is sitting out on the porch all day (with the exception of hitting the early bird specials), then yeah, I get it. But I don’t plan to do that. I plan to devote time to my hobbies, interests, family, friends and self…do the things I WANT to do, not NEED to do. I think I am creative enough to do things that will provide the same mental and physical benefits as what I do at work.
3) Much the same as 2. Work is A great place to find meaningful and challenging activities…it is by no means the ONLY place.
4) Mentoring the younger…really? Does anyone think that a 40 or 50 year old is going to be any less able to mentor a younger worker than a 70 or 80 year old? There are plenty of people with the experience and maturity and age to be able to provide this great knowledge transfer. Besides which, they say we are going to have a shortage of younger workers….meaning there should be a plethora of good mentors available.
5) So this was the first that actually made me think…for a second. First off, I will be off doing my own thing and, quite frankly, don’t care. It will mean that salaries should rise for those workers and/or we will need to be that much more productive. In any case, a higher salary could lure me back perhaps part time but I don’t think this in and of itself is a reason for me not to retire.
6) With healthcare taken care of by Obama 🙂 what is there to worry about if I have saved diligently during my working life? Could I run out of money? Certainly. I can do that at any time during my life – there is always that risk. I work hard to mitigate it and I will during retirement also. Quite frankly, that is a risk I am willing to accept.
So this article did not even begin to persuede me not to retire. How about you?
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All Things in Moderation 
With regards to 6, I have no expectation of receiving anything close to the current level of Social Security and Medicare benefits if and when I retire.
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“do the things I WANT to do, not NEED to do”
This is important. I think at every stage of life you need to carve out time to the extent possible. I had an uncle who had planned all sorts of trips/activities with my aunt for their retirement. Killed in a car accident a year or two before implementing the plan. enjoy it while you can.
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Dave,
My question for you is, do you like what you do to earn a living? I happen to be in sales, and have had both good and bad sales jobs. Ultimately though, I see no need to retire. I devote the time I want to activities other than work and part of my life’s enjoyment in work, so for me, retirement is absurd.
Admittedly, that’s a rather simplistic breakdown of my reason, but I think career satisfaction plays a huge part in one’s desire to retire. Obviously, there are career paths that put limitations on continuace, pilots for example have to retire at a set age. Other occupations take tolls on the human body that shorten one’s physical ability to continue.
One final thought, is retirement a so called “First World Problem?” and if so, it is a relatively new one where the answers don’t yet exist? As in, we know that research on it, like on salt consumption or caffeine, will expect to reverse itself dozens of times in the next century.
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TMW – My question for you is, do you like what you do to earn a living?
Very much so at the moment. But there are other things that I would rather be doing…or that I like more…things that would not necessarily allow me to earn a living. I suspect if I owned my own business and loved it, that would be one thing. But I don’t and right now, while I am pretty invested and devoted and loyal to my company and my work, it is not what defines me. Basically it pays my bills. Granted, it lets me develope relationships and fortuately for me, is very rewarding and enjoyable. But I think the only part that I could not replace with something more enjoyable is the paying the bills part. That is where retirement comes in for me.
Nova, i read your post and could not help but think of the movie “Up”. Balancing the things I WANT to do and things I NEED to do is important to me. I do have a good balance of family, community and work. My job allows me the flexibility to do this. But I am working or traveling to and from work for 10 hours a day. I simply would rather devote more of that time to other things.
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Having flunked #1, I’ve been ‘retired’ since mid-2004. I’m sure that, if the medical situation were to reverse itself, I’d be able to find engaging, fulfilling employment within a reasonable period of time.
That said, I love not working. I have filled my life with whimsy, joy, friends, and purpose I never would have discovered had my physical health not declined.
My experience has taught me I probably can adjust to a variety of life situations and still be happy and make ends meet financially. Each of us is hard-wired differently, and must pursue what drives her/him.
As to #5 above, I will share that a close male friend age 60 lost his job last year. His resume is stellar and he got lots of interviews. But younger candidates seemed to win out. He has landed a great job and starts in two weeks. But I’m not so sure #5 holds, or for that matter #4. Mentoring has its place, but a company simply doesn’t need that many older mentors on hand.
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Don’t want them even if they might need them, MsJS.
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Mentoring has its place, but a company simply doesn’t need that many older mentors on hand.
In the modern workplace, if not before, mentoring usually involves known the peculiarities of your particular job in your particular organization. That value doesn’t tend to transfer well.
Older folks are also valuable for knowing how old things work. There are places that still support mainframes, and when I encounter organizations that still use mainframe systems, almost everybody who services and programs them are old, some at or past retirement age. A lot of folks came out of retirement during the Y2K flap, because there was a shortage of COBOL programmers, and people familiar with old hard-wired time circuits that everybody was sure were going to fail and doom us all. I’ve run into situations where people using old systems needed my old knowledge, but it’s usually to deal with immediate problems; the long term solution is to obsolete the equipment or software that requires sages with ancient mystical knowledge.
Youngsters today who might be going into graphic design or printing generally know nothing of the old Scitex systems, old typesetters, or ancient computers running Windows 3.1 or Mac OS 7 or Video Toaster on Amiga. But there are still occasions where that knowledge is useful; they are just rare.
Mostly, the old folks understand the byzantine structure of the organization they’ve worked in for a long time, and have seen most every kind of problem come up, and if they depart abruptly they leave a large gap. Thus, those folks are needed for mentoring, and can do it for as long as they can work.
The rational for retiring or not isn’t particularly meaningful to me. I don’t envision a scenario where I will be financially able to retire voluntarily, so I expect I will be working until I can no longer do so, and then I’ll take it from there. Thus, that hard decision is off the table, so it worries me not.
When I was much younger, I planned to retire at 45. Of course, this was in the late 90s, and even though I knew better I was seeing a world where my dot-com-boom investments would continue to appreciate forever in the manner that they had the previous year. In fact, they all vanished, and what had once been quintupled money on paper became a nice fat loss. Yet, I am probably happier now, seeing myself working until I die, than I was when I fantasized I would retire at 45. So, I’ve got that to console myself with. 😉
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Don’t want them even if they might need them, MsJS.
That has largely been my experience, Mark, especially in tougher economic times. Also, I knew a number of mentors whose existence relied on upper mgmt. sponsors. If the sponsors left, the mentors didn’t last long. The more adept ones left of their own accord and the less flexible ones ended up on the downsize list in the next 2-6 months.
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Kevin – When I was young, I planned to retire at 40! I am several years passed that.
MsJs, I can say that I have not really seen ageism in the places I have worked…and that gives me hope. But I realize that is not the case in many places. Maybe my govt contracting jobs are different. I have not personally seen someone let go because they were old. They were let go because the contract was lost or they deserved to be let go because they were not good employees.
I obviously don’t know if I will retire at a time of my choosing or whether circumstances will dictate otherwise, but I too have had experiences that, as MsJs said, taught me I probably can adjust to a variety of life situations and still be happy and make ends meet financially.
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Dave! and MsJS – hi. As a management side lawyer I hear some of my clients deride older employees for being older. However, Dave!, you are certainly correct in spades that seasoned small federal contractors are better behaved. Big tech firms will turn over their older engineers in a NY minute. IBM contracts them back for special projects within their expertise, but the turnover at about 55 is great.
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Being an academician, I’ve never thought much about retiring (it was a different story when I was in the Army–no one can sustain that lifestyle much beyond your mid-40s to 50s). The work is generally stimulating and non-physical–although the last two weeks of gene hunting, with associated repetitive motions moving very small amounts of liquid into very small openings have made me very glad that I’m going out of town for a week!–the hours are flexible, and it’s not uncommon to work into your 70s and 80s now, depending on your specialty.
Having said that, what I’ve always envisioned as “retirement” for myself was moving into a totally different field–I’m a PADI Divemaster–and continuing to earn $$$ while doing something that, right now, is a hobby.
I guess retirement is what you see yourself doing when you are no longer compelled to earn money.
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I guess retirement is what you see yourself doing when you are no longer compelled to earn money.
In my case, that’s going to be Resting in Peace. 😉
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As Michi notes, how do you want to spend your time? I’m currently sacrificing my sanity to a desk in exchange for a comfortable income & early retirement. My kids will be hitting college at my target retirement age (55), perhaps I will follow michi’s lead and dramatically change careers at that time.
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Mark-“I hear some of my clients deride older employees for being older.” Do you ever hear them lament on how brash, green, clueless the younger workers are? (I doubt it but just thought i would ask).
“I guess retirement is what you see yourself doing when you are no longer compelled to earn money.” Exactly!
“In my case, that’s going to be Resting in Peace.” Reality check…
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Dave! – I hear certain groups deride the young ‘uns. Not in tech. But CPAs? Get around the partners in a CPA firm and you would think these kids working 80 hours a week during tax season were wasting the firm’s time, money, and good will, because they have no work ethic and no life experience, and cannot be trusted with anything more difficult than a 1040.
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