The Wall Street Journal had an article comprised of a bunch of anecdotes from retirees who went back to work for various reasons. The work seemed mostly like gigs as opposed to second careers, one guy got his CDL and drives a school bus which is more of gig to me. There was a former nurse who did a couple of things after retiring from nursing and then went back to it which seems more careerish. Financial considerations were part of it but only one person said flat out, they need the money. That person though also believes he has more to offer to his profession as a videographer so purpose was at least part of his equation.
As always with these articles, read the comments. Commenters ranged from "retire as soon as humanly possible" to "I will never retire no matter what." One interesting trend in the comments was the honest lack of understanding of why someone else would have a different belief. "Why the hell would you want to keep working?"
All of this is of course fascinating to me. I am pretty sure that there are people who want to retire to do nothing. One comment seemed to be looking forward to being bored. One insightful comment talked about dividing time into thirds where 1/3 was something purposeful whether that was work or volunteering, 1/3 was more routine things like exercise and hobby time and 1/3 for family. I paraphrased that.
Hopefully people spend time trying to figure out what their life will be like when they hit ages that are usually associated being of retirement age. There are multiple levels here including finances, day to day lifestyle, visibility for anything that might change like being very involved helping aging parents or having to help adult children or whatever else.
Obviously if the dollars don't work (not enough of them) then something will have to give. Maybe working in some capacity to a later than desired age, maybe some serious lifestyle cutbacks or a combination of the two.
I regularly share my beliefs about lifestyle in terms of purpose, whether it pays or not but I try not to project that onto how other people "should" live their retired life. I do think we all need to devote thought to what we each want to do. That entails figuring out what it really important to us, owing nothing to anyone else.
If someone thinks they are looking forward to being bored, if that's you, some sort of backup idea might make sense, I could being wrong about that. I spoke to a buddy today who I wouldn't say is gung ho to retire yesterday but he doesn't really enjoy his job which is a challenging dynamic for someone in his mid-50's. He said that if you enjoyed it, it wouldn't be a job. I kept my mouth shut but that isn't how I view things at all. Regardless of where my friend goes professionally, I am a huge believer that it is possible to genuinely enjoy what you do, find purpose in it which leads to putting in your best effort. I feel as though that combination of enjoyment, purpose and effort can provide a pretty decent shot of converting into a relatively lucrative part-time gig at an older age if needed or wanted.
There is also the psychology of retiring that can be challenging and difficult to see coming. One of the comments made the same point, the transition from accumulating to withdrawing can be very difficult. I've said before that I think that will be uncomfortable for me but reasonably speaking, people might not learn that about themselves until the withdrawals start.
One of the most important related concepts for this discussion is optionality. If the article alluded to optionality it did so very subtly, almost undetectable. Maybe I am projecting a belief onto others but the more optionality we can give ourselves, the easier every aspect of life becomes.
The
information, analysis and opinions expressed herein reflect our
judgment and opinions as of the date of writing and are subject to
change at any time without notice. They are not intended to constitute
legal, tax, securities or investment advice or a recommended course of
action in any given situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment