Now that we are retired, we are not relevant. Have I shocked you with that statement? There are some younger people that think this. Are they right? They could be. We have found that we are the only ones in control of the answer to this question.
The dictionary definition of relevant is: bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent. Mark and I have talked about this quite a bit lately, openly and honestly. We both feel that it depends on the retired person! Here are some things we've learned about retirement. As we are not experts on retirement, by far, we'll just share with you what we've learned to date.
1. Even though most people look forward to retirement, once you retire you do feel a little disconnected. Our society is set up to make you feel this way. The world keeps moving (faster) without you - and if your job had required overtime, like mine did, stepping off that fast track can make your head spin and can make you feel left behind. We did feel this way...for a short period of time. What we learned is that the best way to handle retirement is to ease into it, if you can. Karen Torretta has done this well by substitute teaching and volunteering - we are leaning from her and others.
2. Mark said to me the other day, "Now that we're retired, I feel that every day is Saturday and I'm not so sure I like that". And we have to purposefully look at the calendar to know the actual date - we don't have to write it daily as we did when we worked. I told Mark that if we stay this way, we could become very self centered, not wanting anyone or anything to disturb our leisure lifestyle or the goals we've set for the day. We used to look forward to Friday's and weekends, now they're just other days...sad, if you think about it. We feel the need to work on this - we don't have any advice on this issue yet. Maybe a part time job might alleviate these things - again easing.
3. Plan ahead for activities or work you will want to do. Mark was
really smart about it and knew he wanted to teach part-time in
retirement, so he started at SLU's College of Public Health teaching a
class a semester. He taught for seven years prior to retirement and it
has paid off as he will be teaching a class at Finlandia University this
spring (they are known as FU - oh my!). I, on the other hand, did not
plan ahead - per se. I do have skills to build our farm and I have
hobbies and interests that support those skills, so that has helped. We
both suggest to figure out what your strengths and interests are and take time to at least build a plan for this in retirement.
4. You will wish you had a masters degree in finance to understand all the necessary, and very important financial nuances of having enough money to last the rest of your life - we wish we had that knowledge! It's not your father's gold watch and annuity days, where all you have to do is attend your retirement party and sign on the dotted line to receive your retirement pay - enough to live on comfortably for 20-30 years of retirement. We have been lucky to find a financial adviser that we've clicked with and we trust; she's been very patient and teaches us as we work together (she works at UMB with Keva- her name is Lisa Hock). She's been very helpful so I am happy to give her the plug. Strongly suggested - learn now, even if you are planning to retire years or decades in the future.
5. We feel that the most important item missing in retirement is purpose/passion, as that was probably tied to your job you just left. You will need to find/build/create passion with something else. If you don't have a passion in your life, each day will just melt into the next. This passion could be tied to your faith or church. It could be created by volunteering, helping your working neighbors, caring for those older than you (they have so much wisdom to share); even building a network of other retired people, helping each other will add some passion to your life. A few of our past neighbors have struggled with this, or the lack of it in their lives - it seemed liked they were just existing and waiting to die, taking up space, and wondering aimlessly - very irrelevant.
If you are like us and don't want to feel irrelevant, these five items may help you enjoy your retirement. If you have observations or suggestions for us, please add them as comments on this site or my Facebook site so we can learn from you. We are all in this world to help and guide each other.
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