How many psychologists does it take to have a happy retirement?

A week later than planned. You’ve heard the joke about how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? The punchline is something like 1 or is it 2, but only if the light bulb really wants to change. Well, I’ve got another version – how many psychologists does it take to reveal the secrets of a happy retirement? Answer, I’ve no bloody idea but I know that 5 is not enough and I speak with some authority here. Reason being on Saturday we went to a BBQ at the home of our chums from Shanghai (and Bejing it turns out but that’s another story) who are home for a few weeks. To cut to the chase, there were 5 ex-psychologists and one soon to be ex (he retires in a year) and their partners and it was with some keen anticipation that I considered the illumination all these great minds would throw on the thorny issue of retirement. You’ll know if you’ve read previous blogs that your author is struggling a bit with being retired. I’m pursued by that nagging doubt that there must be more to it than whatever it is I’ve put in place for my retirement. So an excellent time to gather something intelligence from my ex-colleagues, most of whom I see rarely, that is apart from my chum who I meet most weeks for a beer. What magnificent insights would be available to me in my on-going search for retirement perfection? Well let me cut to the chase again, answer – none really. But there is a reason for this …

This was a very pleasant social gathering and I say that as your resident miserable bastard never particularly comfortable in these ‘be nice and chatty’ type situations. Yes, perfectly pleasant but it was not a time for deep thinking about the meaning of retirement. You might say while it was perfectly alright to ask about the ‘what’ of retirement it was not acceptable to delve into the ‘why’. Not the time for, yes, but why have you chosen to do a, b or c? Asking those kind of questions would indicate a level of neediness that I would not want to expose. I suspect, although I have no proof, because I couldn’t ask this either, that none of the assembled 10 people (with partners) would want to admit that retirement hadn’t been any great shakes, nor would our colleague who hasn’t yet retired, wish to indicate that retirement held any great fears for him and, of course, our chums in Shanghai have very definitely set their stalls out – retirement is for wimps. So I could ask about the ‘what’, in a sense, it would be rude not to, but, as to the contentedness that each choice has brought, I was going to have to use all my psychological skills to infer the wisdom of their various choices. They weren’t going to come clean and come to that neither was I.

Briefly ‘the what’ was as follows – couple A, working round the table, have completely retired and live in two houses one at the seaside and the other in the city. The male member, if you’ll pardon the expression, is not completely happy (not too difficult to infer) and they plan to sell the city house and buy an apartment in either Amsterdam or Northern Italy. So a bit of searching for perfection still going on there. Couple B, the female half is still working very hard and has no immediate plans to retire, which leaves the male half working on their ‘farm’, mainly repairing stone walls, occasionally working on his shepherd’s hut and doing quite a lot of grandfatherly child-care type things. Is he happy with this arrangement? Well, I know he wishes his wife didn’t work such long hours but, this apart, and despite the fact that I spend more time talking to him than any other person on account of our regular meetings in the pub, I have absolutely no idea. This chum, unlike yours truly who is a blabber and a wearer of heart on sleeve, keeps his emotions locked up pretty tight, despite some intensive grilling from me at times. Couple C, my ex-boss, has had health problems, plans to work another year and then retire to the Isle of Arran where they have bought a house and his wife has family connections. So, big changes for them in prospect and nothing like a ‘health scare’ to sharpen perceptions of what to do with your life. Couple D, our hosts, are, as I say, working in China, so a very definite avoidance of retirement from them. Couple E, that’s us and I probably don’t need to describe our retirement as that’s pretty much all I’ve done so far on this blog.

So much for the ‘what’, now what can I infer from the choices my ex-colleagues have made or are about to make, about what makes for a happy retirement. I’m making an assumption here that happiness is the over-riding goal. A big assumption and a fairly useless one if couched in the terms how do you achieve happiness, but it will do for now. The first insight I gain is that travel, movement, living in foreign places, figures quite high in the equation. Maybe this is a keep moving and don’t think about things, strategy. This is a little bit annoying because, as you know, I’ve frequently identified travel as the missing link from our own retirement and difficult for us to get round because of the pups. Second, having a comfortable income helps, well really?? Third, having a partner who shares your idea of a dream retirement certainly helps and it is possible that when one partner retires first and the other keeps working – hard in this case – this can lead to a feeling of some isolation for the non-working half, but that’s just speculation and not all that interesting as speculation goes. After these rather obvious conclusions it all gets a bit more blurred you might say. I could speculate that the people who were happy before they retired are equally happy now that they have or nearly have retired and the miserable bastards, I include myself in this small category (the whole process of discovery is blighted by small sample size as we psychologists like to say), show no change either. I must just defend myself a little here, I’m not really a miserable bastard, But I am the kind of person who is constantly searching for pastures new, never quite satisfied, a little bit grass is greener elsewhere, all of which don’t easily lead to ‘happiness’.

So I did a tiny bit of searching at the BBQ, just in case anybody who I hadn’t seen for a while, might have discovered the magic bullet. But no, for reasons I’ve described, my search for perfection goes on. Well, stop it then you silly bastard, I hear you say. But I can’t, I just can’t, not in my nature you see, I am a seeker as Pete Townsend used to sing. Now he’s not retired  either.