Between biological transitions and life events, age is just a number

In the timeline of our life between birth and death of self, graduation, dropping off from traditional education, switching jobs, meeting with an accident, menopause, taking voluntary retirement or retiring at the company/government designated age – are all events that happen to us either by our own desired choice or nudged and influenced by circumstances.

Whereas, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, older adulthood, oldage – these are all biological transitions. 

Reaching older age need not be a cue to retire. And retirement need not be a function of reaching a certain age. We can choose to never retire or we can choose to retire early, late or at the culturally designated age. Retirement is a social construct, not a biological necessity.

But historically and conventionally, since the introduction of a ‘designated retirement age’ during the industrial era, many even today associate retirement with old age. And the years that follow retirement from work at 60-65 years are associated as golden years.

Infact, some believe that the reference of post-retirement old age as ‘golden years’ dates back to an ad campaign in 1959. Through the Sun City brand of retirement communities, Del Webb and his company coined ‘golden years’ and marketed retirement life as as the days of leisure, something to long for rather than dread decline. Know more about the marketing campaign here.

Gold-washing may have worked for marketing. But in reality, what is gold about these years post retirement? Life post retirement is not necessarily easy, whether you retire early or at the culturally designated age.

With retirement, first and foremost your routine of stepping in to work, the tasks, interactions and productivity is broken. Your cash inflow is impacted. You no longer have access to people and places that the power of your position provided.

Like a lottery winner suddenly having a huge lump sum of money, NO, not everyone will have a lot of money when they retire, but yes you suddenly have a lot of TIME in your hands. And you yourself have to assign priorities to the things you want to do. Or in many cases these days, you are even more stressed because you, at 60-65, are the caregiver of your parents at >85-90 years. Your responsibilities and restraints have not gone far merely with your retirement.

As evidenced by multiple but limited studies, comes with retirement – voluntary or imposed – are: “suddenly ended inertia of mind-bending or laborious work and work routine, loss of status and prestige of the position you held, disengagement from life as you had known until now, blurry future milestones and clueless of you next step to take. These have proven to induce partial identity disruption, decision-paralysis, a sense of void, diminishing self trust, an anxious search to find meaning, purpose and relevance and death anxiety.”

Retirement in anticipation may seem like the golden years of life. But in reality, retirement is not all gold and shiny.

But could we change these psycho-social outcomes of our ‘golden years’? In the current climate of low to zero opportunities for the 50-60+, can old-age retirement be avoided? Or retired life be made purpose driven and self supporting? The answer is yes, and you will have to wait for our next blog for the details 🙂