I have been retired from active work for eight months at the time of
this writing. Before retiring, I heard many tragic stories of friends or
colleagues who quit work before me. Those stories were mostly about
depression, sudden illnesses and even cases of death shortly after
retirement. It is a known fact that people tend to live a long and
fulfilling life when exercising professions such as politics, arts and
science, where there is no formal retirement. However, in professions
like the military, government, commerce and industry, where formal
retirement is the common practice, you will need to be prepared for it
if you want to reach this long and fulfilling life.
In most
developed countries, retirement age occurs between 60 to 65 years of
age. In many countries, there is what is called "early retirement age",
which is set 3 to 5 years before the normal retirement age. This means
that if you started working at around 25, you would be probably retiring
after 35 to 40 years of work. It is ironic that those troubles appear
at the moment one gets the well-deserved reward for working so many
years.
The transition between the active working life and
retirement is anything but brutal. All of a sudden your life completely
changes: your days are no longer divided into dedicated regular hours,
time goes on interminably in one continuous span, you don't need to go
or be anywhere, it doesn't matter if you stay at home or go out, there
are no commitments, nobody is waiting for you or depending on you. In
fact, the big thing in this new retired life is that nothing is fixed,
and nothing really needs to be done, in the majority of cases your
survival is assured by your retirement pension, you just have to sit
around and enjoy life.
For most people, this is what they have
dreamed all their working lives: the freedom to choose what to do and
when to do it. But for others, it may result in a considerable social
and personal shock. Not having the answer to the question "What shall I
do now?" can have a dramatic impact, leading to disorientation, boredom
and distress. For many retirees, this shock is so profound that they may
end up with serious illnesses that were not there before...
In
my humble opinion, after eight months of retirement, I believe that it
has a lot to do with the degree of intellectual activity you had while
working: the more intellectually demanding activity you had before, the
harder will be the transition. This explains why there are fewer
problems in activities where there is no retirement, since the brain
will continue to be exercised until you die. Some people would explain
it in a different way, saying that it has to do with the degree of
happiness: if you're happy, you have more chances to live a long life.
I'm not so sure about that. I've seen people not so happy living a long
life but being very active throughout, and I've seen some very happy
people dying suddenly of heart attack. I am not saying that keeping the
mind busy will make you live longer, what I am saying is that the sudden
decrease of intellectual activity may cause you serious problems.
I
had many plans for my retirement. Being a software engineer and
passionate about my profession, I envisaged dedicating myself to some
personal projects and new techniques that I wanted to explore.
Basically, I faced retirement simply as a means to offer me the freedom
of choosing my own direction in the field, without the restrictions of a
contractual job. However, in this first phase of my retirement, I had
to face many different logistical problems that had nothing to do with
my profession (moving part of my household to another country, selling
my house, buying a new one, etc). Because of concentrating only on
those, my brain was idling and then, emotions took over. And when
emotions take over, you become vulnerable to stress. And stress is the
enemy to avoid at all costs!
Because of stress I already had
three different health problems, one of them rather serious that
affected my eyes, preventing me of doing computer work for the next year
or two. I have been thinking about that quite a lot, and I decided to
regroup and change my behavior. Whatever I need to do in the future, it
is imperative that I reserve some time for brain activity. Whatever
mundane problems need to be solved I need to do as if I am still at
work, i.e., have some regular hours where I dedicate myself to a
rewarding intellectual activity that will keep my brain cells busy and
the adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately for me, at least for now, it
cannot be computer work, but I have other tricks up my sleeve. Many
retirees concentrate mostly in physical activities to keep themselves
fit, but intellectual activity is as important, believe me!
For
many, retirement is like a permanent vacation, and they are happy with
sitting every day at the beach, under the sun, drinking a caipirinha,
keeping a close eye on the people around them, listening to music from
the MP3 player, swimming in the ocean... All this may sound great, but
for others like me, vacation is only a necessary break to relieve the
tension and recharge the batteries before continuing the activities that
I enjoy doing. Therefore, for this sort of people, a permanent vacation
is equal to a slow death albeit a pleasant one.
Thus, my final
advice to you is to get well prepared for retirement. Don't be idle,
don't let simple everyday problems take over your full time, get a
part-time job if you can, or anything that will bring back regular
hours, some commitment, some purpose to your life (a friend of mine is
doing part-time volunteer work, and this is a good solution). After your
mundane problems are solved, you will still have plenty of time to
enjoy yourself while you are kept in shape by occupying your mind with
some challenging and gratifying activity.
