In 1951, I was 3 years old. That’s the reason
or at least the connection to why I’m writing a blog about retirement – I’m 66. According to a programme on TV (Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds) the other night the year 1951 had great significance in the city of New York. This was, reportedly, the year of Theolonius Monk and the birth of modern jazz, Lee Strasbourg and method acting, Jackson Pollock and abstract expressionism and Jack Kerouac writing On the Road.
I noted all this because, apart from the acting, I was a big fan of all these cultural events. I have yet to share my own art college version of abstract expressionism but my enthusiasm for jazz and, of course, writing, through the medium of this blog, are there for ‘all’ to see. The one that particularly caught my attention on this evening, was the book On The Road. I didn’t read it way back then (not enough pictures), in fact I was well into middle age when I did read it and, though it was in some ways quite challenging for those of us brought up on more traditional forms of the novel, I enjoyed it. Incidentally, I had vaguely thought that one of the things I would do when I retired was read some of those books I never got round to reading, you know the sort of thing, the classics, War and Peace, To Kill a Mockingbird etc. I also thought I might re-read some of my favourite books, hence my interest in On the Road. I was a big fan of America, as a whole, at the time I read the book. As I’ve written elsewhere (Retire and Renew.com) in 1979 we undertook our own road trip from Washington DC to Los Angeles and San Francisco. So, yes, I was interested and the programme seemed like a bit of a prompt to get the book off of my shelves and get reading. Which I have.
My copy of On the Road published and bought 1991
But, but, what really caught my attention was the presenter of the programme describing Kerouac as trying to capture the spirit of the age. In Kerouac’s case this was the spirit of the outsider in America, the people who either struggled to fit into consumer America or, more to the point, who didn’t want to fit it. This set me thinking about retirement (sometimes a retired person can feel like an outsider), in case you were wondering where retirement comes into this blog, how would a person describe the spirit of the age of retirement? It varies you say – obviously, well maybe a better question is – what would you want the spirit of your retirement age to be? Adventurous? Easy-going? Full of novelty? Predictable? Familiar? Wild and Wacky? Spent at home? On a desert island? The reason I ask is because I think it is important, if we are going to make the most of our precious retirement time, to identify what our key ‘words’ are. I have described these elsewhere as our guiding values. It’s relatively easy to conjure up a bucket list of things to do in retirement – visit the Taj Mahal, go white-water rafting, meet Bruce Springsteen – but are they the ‘right’ things? How do you know you’re using your precious time to the best possible effect. That being, in the broadest terms, happiness, fulfilment, a sense of well-being? Answer, you need to be clear about your broad underpinnings. The bedrock upon which you build the bucket list. Without it you may engage in activities that aren’t meaningful to you and perhaps more important, miss out on areas that should be vital to using this one opportunity – retirement – to maximum effect.
in 1951, Kerouac wrote his book, Theolonius invented modern jazz, Strasbourg a whole new approach to acting, Pollock took art to different places. So what do you want to do? Not to be morbid about it but Stephen Covey in his very popular, self-help book The Seven Habits of the Highly Effective Person, wrote that you should imagine your own funeral if you wanted to identify what is important to you. He asked what would you want the people who stand up to talk about what kind of person you were, what would you want them to say? S/he was ….. These words will become your values. They will represent the spirit of your age of retirement. Dare to dream. Let yourself go. Yes, I know that’s not how you’ve done things so far in your life. This is a rare opportunity to dream and realise that dream.
Is this a reasonable view of retirement? Should it be a time of dreams, of letting your imagination run wild? Well, it depends on how you see things. As I’ve written elsewhere retirement can be safe and steady or wild and wacky. Neither is either right or wrong, just what works for you. Maybe you think some parts will be safe and steady and other parts, wild and wacky. Which areas are which? I would say it’s worth giving some thought at this broad level, rather than just the specifics, the details, to what you really want your retirement to be about. It’s a once in a life time chance.