Reimagine Retirement: Don’t be a Couch Potato

I was having a conversation recently with a relative who is a few years younger than I am.  He expressed his lack of desire to retire, and his hopes to keep working for many years.  He explained that he didn’t want to suddenly just sit around and do nothing while he gets old, and his body falls apart.  He pointed to a couple of other relatives who are retired and dealing with mobility issues, falls, broken hips, etc.   The leisure life they were planning seems to have been hampered a bit; they are a little more limited in doing all the things they might have imagined for retirement, because they find it harder to move around.   Perhaps, instead of traveling, they are spending time and money adapting their home for greater navigational ease (e.g., putting in an elevator or wheelchair lift).  That conversation cemented my thinking that we really need to rethink retirement, to reimagine it entirely.

I always used to think that retirement was for old people – too old to work 40+ hours a week or, perhaps, too tired.  You’ve paid your dues.  You did the 9:00 to 5:00 routine and you’ve earned your extended vacation.  You can retire, take walks, read all the books you never had time to read while you were working, babysit the grandkids, and travel, travel, and travel some more.  It has been said that it can be less expensive to take one cruise after another than it is to pay a mortgage.  In other words, sell the house and schedule one cruise after another. I’m not sure I’d be ready to give up my “creature comforts” and live on a cruise ship full-time, especially one that cruises on rough waters.  I  can imagine spending half of my time “praying to the porcelain God” because of seasickness.  Be that as it may, now that I am semi-retired, I have to say that it is nothing like what I expected.

If you are over 60, chances are you have aging family members requiring your help and support.  Your new “job” may be as part-time caregiver, and full-time worrier.  If this is your situation, give yourself some grace and personal time.  It may not be the moment to take on something new and reinvent yourself.  You may have to accept that you’ve been given this gift of retirement in order to care for family.  This was the scenario I faced during my first year of retirement.  Depending on finances, you may be able to hire others to serve in a caregiver capacity or, alternatively, you may be able to secure a more appropriate living situation for them, like assisted living or long term care.  No individual is equipped to be a 24/7 caregiver and this is not an ideal way to spend your retirement; get help if this is your situation.

Back to reality.  When I was laid off a few years before my planned retirement, I was resistant.  Like others, I wasn’t ready to sit around and do nothing but get older. Of course, we do get older and that’s merely a fact of life.  There is a lot we can do to keep ourselves healthy and fit and not enough can be said about the benefits of a heart-healthy diet and exercise, whether it's walking, running, swimming, yoga, pilates, or weightlifting.  I probably left a few options out of that list, but the bottom line is that we can only keep our bodies young by engaging in some kind of exercise, stretching, and mindfulness (meditation, yoga, or some other means of calming our overactive minds).  There is also much to be said for brain games – however silly it may seem to some, it’s important to me to get my daily fix of Wordle, Nerdle, Globle, the Mini Crossword, and several other New York Times Games.  While I think of it as mindless activity, the reality is that I have to engage my brain, so it’s really mental exercise.  Whether it’s a word game or a numbers game, it’s all useful to keep our brains engaged.

The greatest challenge in facing retirement is finding a new sense of purpose.  For most of us, jobs or careers provide us with fulfillment and community.  Our career gives us a reason to get out of bed in the morning with purpose.  We have things that require our attention, people depending on us, and work to accomplish.  Without a job and salary that assumes we are completing some tasks to earn (or merit) our paycheck, we may feel aimless.  After all, with nothing that absolutely has to get accomplished today, why not just sleep in, pull the covers over your head and keep on sleeping.  Find the TV remote and binge watch something noteworthy or, perhaps, find something utterly meaningless to watch just to fill the time. Spend hours on Facebook or TikTok enjoying outlandish videos, memes and other posts.   While there is certainly nothing wrong with television, streaming entertainment, or staying in touch with friends via social media, retirement should not be an excuse to dive head first into being a couch potato and staring at a TV screen or computer monitor.  

The key to retiring well is to find whatever will provide you with a sense of purpose and develop some activities or tasks to accomplish.  For example, maybe you have decided to become a blogger.  Find some online courses (or blogs) teaching you how to do that.  Learn how to use a blogging site like substack (or maybe your own website).  Determine what topic inspires you and begin to blog about it.  This is merely one example.  Alternatively, you may feel inspired by a local charity, cause, or political pursuit.  Find a way to support that either by volunteering, serving on a board or even hosting fundraisers.  I, personally, feel strongly about women’s reproductive rights, so I am doing some volunteer teaching of pilates to raise money for Planned Parenthood.  We all have different passions.  Now, more than ever, find yours!  

Reimagining retirement may mean viewing it as merely another chapter in our active lives, a time to be busy doing all the things we love and even, potentially, working or learning a new skill or craft.  I know retired people who have begun taking lessons in piano, singing, painting, and dance.  Other retirees have tried their skills at writing books, blogs, essays, newsletters, and often merely taking writing jobs that they get through freelancer sites.  Others take on consulting projects, side hustles, or short-term project gigs.  Some choose to volunteer at local schools, libraries, or charitable organizations.  The idea that retirement is an end is all wrong. 

It should be viewed as a beginning or, more appropriately, a new beginning.  At 60+, we are truly in the third third of our lives, so why not make it as vibrant as the first two-thirds.  What if we could rename “retirement” altogether?  If the first third of our lives is spent on education, and the second phase is spent on experience (i.e., work), then maybe the third phase is self-actualization or self-fulfillment.   Better yet, let’s just think of it as “Act Three.” What better way to live a richer and fuller life!