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Thursday, August 17. 2017Retirement
My observations are that people (mostly men) tend to feel useless if not emasculated by retirement, and end up finding new challenges. Forced retirement, due to health or being let go for whatever reason, is particularly crushing to the male self-image. A vacation is one thing, but a permanent vacation is not so special for most people. You can only play so much golf, and a wife usually does not want a guy hanging around a house all day. Income is also a factor. A top financial adviser says the notion of retirement is gone — here's what he thinks people will do instead What's your view? Is retirement a life goal or an ending of some sort? I clearly feel that it is a lousy life goal, because life is only today regardless of age.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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sure, a financial adviser. Of the type advising governments on how to milk pension funds for money to buy more votes from young people...
Ever more governments are clamoring to get rid of retirement completely in practice while keeping people from paying premiums for it in reality. In the end those reaching retirement age end up not with a pension but on unemployment benefits, followed by social security or become medically disqualified to work and end up on the same social security. Which is cheaper for the government as social security is less than pension payouts to those same people would have been. A lot of people, maybe most, are physically and/or mentally exhausted by the time they reach retirement age. They may live longer after retirement, but they're incapable of doing productive work and even if they aren't they're derailed as "too old, too slow, unwilling to learn new things" by 25 year old HR flunkies and shoved out of the job market as effectively as if they were dead. So, what is "retirement age"?
70? 75? I see plenty of people working in their 80s. "My observations are that people (mostly men) tend to feel useless if not emasculated by retirement, and end up finding new challenges. "
That is a response caused by decades of conditioning by the school system. The goal was to psychologically enslave, especially men, for the benefit of the community and privileged. It is breaking down as the reward system, prestige and accolades for the successful, has been debased as white male privilege. The younger generation have seen their fathers broken and tossed out after they were of no more use. They are, oddly enough, willing to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. What a CROCK!
I retired at 45 and have enjoyed the last 17 years more than ever! You just need to decide what you want out of life and how to get it. Boredom is a choice. LOSERS! QUOTE: Nassim Nicholas Taleb: That's true. But they are--an employee is--okay, someone who sold you his work unconditionally, saying, okay, you are going to report to him and come back, or sometimes there is nothing to do, they still have to show up. So--or, maybe you have employees who are freer. But that's a typical standard. Why is that so? Well, because you want people who are not free. And this is why we have the school system, to basically teach people to not be free, between 8 and 4 p.m. Russ Roberts: It's practical. Nassim Nicholas Taleb: This is how it works. Russ Roberts: It's practice. Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Yeah. So they are broken in young, and they learn. And so you have employees. My oldest son retired at 39. He made it for 3 years then bought his old business back and has been hard at it ever since. I'm almost 71 , feel great and have no desire to retire. I can't work as hard as I used too but I do work smarter.
Pffft. I retired at 50 and have had a blast the last 4 years. I've had a job since a paper route at 11. Always worked. I screw off, travel once and awhile, work around the house on stupid stuff and meet friends for drinks once a week to talk and laugh. Some folks have high expectations for what retirement is.... Keep things in order... get out of debt, stay healthy if you can, and it's all good.
After 37 years of teaching college students and doing ultimately pointless research, I was happy to retire and give up the 57 mile (one way) commute. Work is over rated, especially by neurotics whose whole identity is dependent on doing what they are told: "wage slaves, indeed!
There you go again, Barrister, dumping on retirement. If you want to chase a paycheck or run your business forever, do it. Those of us who don't want to chase paychecks or continue running a business, won't.
Why does that bother you so much? Is someone nagging you to retire? Ironically, if one gets what is they are suppose to from their Liberal Arts degree, then once subsistence is taken care of, no reason not to live the life of the mind. If you can't occupy yourself without "work" then your education didn't take.
The liberal arts were always for hobby. QUOTE: In the precapitalistic ages writing was an unremunerative art. Blacksmiths and shoemakers could make a living, but authors could not. Writing was a liberal art, a hobby, but not a profession. It was a noble pursuit of wealthy people, of kings, grandees and statesmen, of patricians and other gentlemen of independent means. It was practiced in spare tim e by bishops and monks, university teachers and soldiers. The penniless man whom an irresistible impulse prompted to write had first to secure some source of revenue other than authorship. Mises, Ludwig von (1956). The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality I retired at 62 and i have loved every minute of it. It has been challenging to try to change a work mindset of nearly 45 years of work. I still get up at 4 a.m. and can't seem to break that habit but i knew i was going to love it when i was feeling really crappy one Monday and realized i would not have to go out in the cold or the heat and force myself to work like i did some many days over the years. I don't play golf but i do love my boat, trap shooting and volunteer work. And living in an area where a lot of people are in mine and my wifes age bracket.
"Men feel useless by retirement" Maybe they do, I dont know about other men butI I spent 30 years at a high paying job I hated, dreaming of the things I would do when I retired and now I am doing ezactly what I want and I love it!
Clearly, "your results may differ."
I see people with many interests and high energy thrive in retirement, and many people deteriorate physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. Clearly, "your results may differ."
I see people with many interests and high energy thrive in retirement, and many people deteriorate physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. You can't hunt and fish every day, but you can come close. And wives often have something to say about what you do in retirement.
I'm sure some of them liked it. Many others are burned out at 65, and looking forward to hanging up their work clothes for good by the time they reach 63.
And I'm not just talking construction workers and lazy sods who don't want to work. The retirement age was set when people were physically worn out from hard labour by 50, so most didn't reach that age. Now medical science has made it so people are still worn out at 55 but medicine has made it so they can keep going into their 70s or 80s. Therein lies the problem, and there's no real fixing it unless more automation is brought in to allow them to be cared for financially, physically, and mentally, without overly taxing the young who enter the workforce ever later and ever less capable (thanks "social studies"). I'm 46 and mentally and physically frail enough that not even 50 years ago I'd have been committed to a mental hospital and stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, but because of medical science and changes (which I like, I'd hate to be a ward of some team of nurses, however nice and well meaning, for the rest of my life) in the law I have to keep working for over 20 years more, IF I survive long enough. Work related stress has caused me physical problems that cause me to miss work regularly because I hurt too much, and mental problems that would have me on suicide watch if my doctors knew about them (and I'm planning on telling them the next time I see them for checking up on my other chronic complaints that are more easy to live with). I'd LOVE to be able to work past the legal retirement age, but as things are going I fear I won't survive long enough as is, and there's talk of raising it even further. Not that it matters as ever more older people find it impossible to find a job, as I mentioned. My parents were similar, as are many people I know and have known. It's not a matter of people not wanting to work, but of not being able to yet forced to to make ends meet. When my dad's doctors told him at 55 he had to retire in a year or be dead within 2, he was in shock for a while before making a very hard decision to give up the work he loved for the wife and children he loved even more. And he no doubt tortured himself mentally ever after seeing the company he built over more than a decade sink into oblivion after he left, but he never told me or anyone. Good point. Whenever I can (which is not often), I bowhunt in the Rockies for 2-3 weeks. Hiking 10-15 miles/day over tough terrain and getting physically exhausted well before noon. If that were my job, I'd probably quit and find something else. But for some reason I keep going back and return home refreshed spiritually, more clear-headed and more appreciative of my family and work. My bowhunting buddy is 75, semi-retired and headed back out for more "abuse" in a week or so. I'm envious, if maybe a bit crazy.
Some people thrive in retirement, other people curl up. My entire life, I've been better at work than I am with too much free time. I like having a sense of purpose, shared goals and the comraderie of work. Other commenters take the view that if you don't thrive in retirement, you are doing life wrong. To that, I say, no shit. So what do I do now? For me, I'm a half-dozen years away from retirement, so I'm joining some clubs and organizations, and lining up some part-time work.
Although I like to work, doing anything for 30 years should be enough. The system should not be a binary work or retire choice. Financially, I'm solid. I'm ready to let some young kid take my slot and start building a solid career. I want some dumb job just to keep me in the game. Like walking dogs or delivering auto parts. |