There comes a time when we’ll all be in the home stretch at work. Great. No more alarms, traffic, fluorescent lights, or younger co-workers who know everything and should be CEO already. Frustrations and hassles eliminated! Being able to eliminate every frustration we might have to deal with at work sounds great, but it also eliminates something else – structure.
A large portion of the week is accounted for without us having to think about it. Get up, go to work, come home. A standard 9-5, plus the getting ready and commuting does keep us occupied, like it or not.
This leaves some people nearing retirement a little hesitant about leaving the work force. Many questions about retirement often shift straight to the financial: do I have enough money? But there’s another question that may be left unaddressed because it can be more uncomfortable than the financial: do I have enough to do?
What to do is just the first thing to consider. Retirement used to be something that was very short. Life expectancy has increased over the past century so some of us are having decades of retirement, instead of a few short years. It can be uncharted territory where we move through various stages and will encounter different mental and physical challenges.
Know Yourself
Knowing what motivates us, and interests us, is not only important, it’s a relief and something to be grateful for. It means having an understanding of what we might do with our time each day and look forward to it. If we can lose track of time while pursuing an interest, that’s even better.
Being listless and frustrated isn’t fun. It’s also not likely to result in our energy going toward a positive place. We’ve heard stories of friends and family having to minimise contact with retired family members because they fell into a negative place. In most cases it was because their vocation became “keeping on top of the news” and we all know when it comes to news “if it bleeds, it leads”.
They were ingesting every negative story locally, nationally and internationally every day. As a result, they wouldn’t stop talking about how the world was “going to hell”, despite the sun shining and the birds chirping outside their own front doors! And if they couldn’t find someone to relay this bad news to, they could be found arguing with strangers on Facebook about it.
If you have outlets across three categories: activities you can do by yourself, activities you can do with your partner and activities you can do with friends, it should provide a good balance of time to yourself, time with your partner and social outlets beyond your own household. Hopefully all activities that provide challenges, opportunities to relax and an overall sense of satisfaction.
Know Your Surroundings & Others
Knowing ourselves is one thing, but it’s always useful to be aware enough to understand what impact our changes will have on others. As we’ve noted previously, grey divorce is on the rise. Some of that can be attributed to conflicting attitudes on what a couple intends to do with their time. If one partner is suddenly at home and the other partner has considered that their space during the week, things could get acrimonious.
And if you think retirement is an upheaval, imagine divorce in retirement!
When the late Canadian retirement expert Barry LaValley visited us for client seminars in 2018, he attributed the success of his marriage post 55 to the fact he and his wife encouraged each other to pursue their respective interests. It meant they were never getting in each other’s way or felt obligated to drag someone along. Then when they were in each other’s company it always meant they had something to discuss.
Movement as Medicine
Another thing to consider is the importance of exercise and movement. You might wonder what financial advisers and their staff would know about physical activity and movement? We’d say plenty, specifically because we’re in an office and we’re sitting down a lot of the time! It offers pause to consider why certain parts of the body might ache, feel stiff or where that latest muscle knot came from.
If you look around our office there’s kneeling chairs, stand up desks, saddle seats, inflatable balls, all trying to alleviate issues that come from sitting for long periods. Despite reminders to move, and more ergonomic positioning, we’re still in the same positions for much of our day. For some of us who are getting up in years, a long day can become a long week, which becomes a long month. String a few of those together, and when you’ve gone home and slumped in the chair every night, backs and legs start to tighten up. In a short space of time, we’re less limber than we used to be, and poor posture begets other health problems.
Identifying risk is important and it’s good to eliminate problems before they occur. Family members are often acutely aware of elderly relatives and dangers, but we all need to ask do we really need to remove every set of stairs? We may not want to tackle the stairs anymore, but they may be doing us more good than we realise. It’s understandable not climbing on roofs or up ladders as we age, but if everything is flattened out and every challenge removed, it may accelerate a physical decline simply because we’re not stressed or tested any more.
Simple message: remember to move as much as possible and stretch where and when we can.
Loss of Control
Unfortunately, there may come a time when we can’t do the activities we used to. Not just “activities” like chores around the house, but “activities we enjoyed doing”. Despite our best-efforts, injury and illness may render us unable to get out and do things we once really enjoyed. That’s going to be very frustrating and hard to accept. We recently spoke with a client in her 80’s who was incredibly angry she didn’t have the capacity to work in her garden anymore.
That’s not just a physical outlet she’s lost, it’s the inability to control and change her environment using her own hands. She can get a gardener in, but to her it’s not the same and she’s mourning the loss of ability and control.
This is one of the greatest challenges of aging. Watching gardening shows and reading gardening books isn’t like actually getting out in the garden. Unfortunately, at some point we all may need to look to what we’re capable of, transition to something we can do, and then pursue it wholeheartedly as a way to keep active and feel in control.
One of our staff members has a lady in her late 90’s living in their street. She’s out walking rain, hail or shine, literally. They looked out their front window recently and there she was. Coat on, hood up, in the pouring rain. Pushing her roller along the street. Absolutely nothing was getting in the way of her daily walk!
This represents general information only. Before making any financial or investment decisions, we recommend you consult a financial planner to take into account your personal investment objectives, financial situation and individual needs.
