Retired Guys and Blondes

Blonde With More Time

What do other people expect from a retired guy?  Now that can be an interesting question.

A friend of mine said something about twenty five years ago that has stuck in my mind ever since she said it.  And it has changed my outlook on life as a retired guy.  My friend was a blonde haired lady and as we were talking one day. I somehow worked the trite saying "blondes have more fun" into the conversation.  In response to my weak attempt at putting some humor into our conversation she lamented, “Blondes have more fun; blondes have more fun; that's all I ever hear.  But it's not true.  People expect so little from us that we just have more time."  She wasn't making a blonde joke when she said it, she was just expressing her frustration at what I had said.  Something must have happened in her recent past that caused what I said to trigger the frustration.

When I began my life in retirement I began to notice that as retired guys people expect less of us than they used to before we retired, so we have more time.  How we use that time determines whether or not we have more fun.  It also has a great impact on how we will make the most of our lives for the next twenty or thirty years or for whatever time we have in retirement.  


Maybe people expect so little from us that we can sneak up on them and do something that really counts.  Think about it!

Comfortable In Retirement

How long does it take to get comfortable?

How long does it take to get comfortable in retirement?  It did not take me long.  I came home from my last day on the job, ate dinner, went to bed, and woke up the next morning comfortable with what I had done.

I know many people though who struggle with their lives in retirement.  They are just not comfortable being retired.  They don’t know what to do with themselves.  I have a friend who has “retired’ twice already and who is back working full time and does not consider himself retired now.  He is more comfortable not being retired.

I believe from observing retired people since I retired that part of the adjustment toward being comfortable in retirement is to realize that retiring at the right time means you have paid in full.

No one asks to be born, but after we have been born and we reach adulthood the pressure is on us to make our own way.  The pressure is on to provide for our own upkeep.  The pressure is on to raise our children.   The pressure is on to contribute to the well-being of our fellow man.  Etc., etc., etc.  But if we work hard enough, if we live long enough, if we are lucky enough the pressure eases and then we really are retired.  We have paid in full.

I believe there is a difference between being retired and being unemployed.  In fact some people who are retired are very much employed.  Maybe a day or two at a time -- maybe full time.  But they are not employed because they have not paid in full.  You see, when you have paid in full, you are then free to add value with what you do above and beyond what you did to make your own way.  You are free to be a net contributor.  You may contribute a little or a lot.  There is no requirement for a prescribed contribution.  I now realize that after you have retired at the right time you contribute because you want to not because you are required to.

The difference is perspective, and in my thoughts perspective makes the difference.

Unemployment With A Party Beforehand

The cake from my "party beforehand"

One of the books I read shortly after I retired was Stumbling on Happiness* by Dan Gilbert a psychology professor at Harvard University.  In this book Mr. Gilbert says that one of the most traumatic things in the human existence is to be unemployed and that retirement can be seen as unemployment with a party beforehand.

Many times we identify ourselves by our employment.

I am a doctor.

I am a mechanic.

I am a salesman.

I am a welder.

I am a (you fill in the blank).

It gives us a sense of who we are and who those around us are.

But when we say we are retired, what does that mean.  Does it mean we used to be somebody but now we are unemployed?  How are we differentiated from those other unemployed people who are really looking for a job?   Are we different from them only because we were the honorees at a party on our last day of employment?

I like to think that now that I am retired I can be employed if I want to just for the joy of doing whatever it is I am employed to do.  Not because I am trying to make a living (even though any resulting money will be nice), but because I really like doing what I am employed to do.

Or of course I can avoid employment if I would rather.

The way I think about it, before retirement employment was a fact of life not a choice.  After retirement it is a choice.

*Gilbert, Daniel Todd. Stumbling on Happiness. Kindle ed. Random House LLC.

OK To Go To The Beach

What does it mean to be retired? Well everyone knows what it means to be retired. At least that is what I thought until I actually stared retirement in the face. Then at that point I realized that maybe everyone else knows, but I am not sure that I know. 

So I decided to look up the word “retired.” When I looked up the definition of the word “retired” on a dictionary website* I saw the "official" dictionary definitions, but I also saw a comment posted by a fellow meaning seeker next to the “official” definitions. The posted comment said, "I have finally fully figured out what the word 'retire' means. I've been "retired" for a year and a half but I now understand that I've 'paid in full'. It's OK to disengage, go to the beach or a cabin on a whim, sleep late, rise early, watch movies til 2 p.m., eat lunch at 3 and dinner at 9. Whew, this feels good!"

  

When I read this I had to ask myself, does retirement feel good enough for me to say, "Whew, this feels good!” If not maybe I need the perspective this person had when he thought about retiring a debt. He realized he had “paid in full.”

The difference is perspective.

*"Retired." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster,  <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retired>.