In March, I was flying to New York City for a cousins' club reunion and I picked up the book Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin at the airport gift shop. I was attracted to the title because I had been thinking a great deal about my approaching retirement, which I had finally set for August 1, and wondering about the impact my decision would have on my own happiness and well-being.
Rubin writes about the changes she made as a result of a mid life malaise that prompted her to dedicate an entire year to seeking the meaning of happiness. She began her journey with extensive research on the subject, drawing from the fields of philosophy, religion, psychology, autobiography, and popular culture. Building on what she had learned, she wrote resolutions that identified what brought her "joy, satisfaction, and engagement," as well as "guilt, anger, boredom, and remorse." Her resolutions became action steps for converting her new theories into everyday practice. Her goal was to master one resolution per month, moving on to the next resolution at the end of the month, and maintaining the one practiced previously. She blogged about her progress, sharing her unique experiences and ecouraged others to create their own path to finding a happy and joyful life.
Rubin provided a helpful model for managing change that I could relate to in preparing for the transition that was about to take place in my own life. The book planted the seed of a plan to use her model to create my own Retirement Project. My resolve about the project strengthened during the weekend in New York as I participated in lively dialogue with the cousins over gourmet dinners, Mid Town shopping, and a Broadway play.
In the course of sharing experiences and catching one another up on our respective family activities, the topic of my retirement naturally arose, the majority of the cousins being either retired, semi-retired, or beginning to plan for the the day that they would be. As we talked about my August 1 date, a sense of tentativeness and discomfort pervaded the conversation, echoing what I recognized as my own squeamishness about the subject. It was similar to the feeling one gets whenever a topic like menopause in mixed groups, or even cancer, comes up. I'd experienced those feelings before, but did not realize how strong they were or that they were shared by others.
It was surprising to me as well to sense the angst associated with the questions posed about my plans, as well as my responses to them. Someone asked, "What are you going to do with all that time?" and another wanted to know, "Will you stop working completely or do you plan to do something else?" Still another cut to the heart of it when she posed, "How are you going to spend the rest of you life?" I felt inadequate to reply and weakly responded, "I'm not sure," "I don't know." "That's something I'm working on."
My experience with the "R-word" left me puzzled over what kind of power it held over us that made it so difficult to talk about, when we were perfectly at ease in conversing about every other subject under the sun.
I have concluded, along with others much more experienced and erudite than I, that what makes us uncomfortable is the change that retirement symbolizes. As Robert Raines writes in A Time to Live, we begin to think about our mortality as we pass into the stage of life he calls the "elder season." We start to measure our life not from its beginning but to its end. That's unsettling and even scary. But, as Raines continues, there is a hopeful side as well. Thanks to improved health care and extended lifespans, many of my generation will enter retirement in the spring of the elder season. We are likely to have many years, and if we are fortunate, the good health and financial resources, to re-invent ourselves and to live happily and productively throughout our elder passage.
Raines challenges us "to explore our work, which not only takes most of our waking hours and energy, but also is a major vehicle for our creativity and a container of our identity" and to "re-imagine" our work life as we make our way through the passage of the elder season. Raines confirmed my belief that it is by facing and dealing with each of the passages or stages of life creatively, that we grow and benefit from change.
I'm still apprehensive about what will happen on August 1, when I become an offical retiree; and, I still can't definitively answer those questions about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. However, I am now approaching the date with a healthy dose of stage fright like that of an actor with opening night jitters. There is enough tension there to keep me on my toes and help me do my best performance, but not so much that I am paralyzed by it. I think I'm ready now to "break a leg."
I left New York invigorated by the city, the cousins, and the prospect of my Retirement Project. New York was the first step, the place where I decided to confront the R-word head on and begin charting the course of my elder journey. The Retirement Project will serve as a passport to that destination.
In the coming year, my goal is to begin the journey by scouting out all of the possible pathways leading through the territory of my elder season. As a compass, I'll use my personal mission statement, which is "To live purposefully, to love unconditionally, to learn perpetually, and to laugh frequently."
I have established this blog and named it "The Retirement Project" to record my progress as I journey through this year of reflection, research, re-invention, and exploration. I don't pretend that there is anything unique about what I am doing. Even the title has been parodied. Mostly, I am recording all of this to fulfill a covenant I made with myself to stop thinking about it and start doing something--to get the words out of my head and onto paper (or into cyberspace).
If you are a fellow traveler or one who began the journey before me, I invite you to share your insights, observations, reservations, and advice as often as you are motivated to do so. Or, if you are one who occasionally picks up the travel brochures but is not yet ready or eligible to purchase a ticket on the R-train, feel free to look on, add your perspective, or get involved at your own comfort level. Whoever you are, be assured that my invitation to visit and participate in this blog is offered in the spirit that the title of Betty White's new book suggests: If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't).
I'm no expert. I'm just the manager of my own venture to find meaning and happines in my elder season. By the end of the year, if you ask me (and you probably won't), I hope to be able to answer all of the questions about what I will do with the rest of my life with a clear voice that projects vision and purpose, if not to anyone but myself. If I succeed in doing that, my Retirement Project will be a success and I will be well on my way to a happy life in the elder season. Any part of this process that I can share with others, either through the giving or receiving of insight, will only enhance and enrich the experience.
