I'm Starting A Retirement Revolution

This old one-size-fits-all label needs a reboot to match the many modern versions of post-career living.

The universal depiction of retirement circa 1950s. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I’ve told perhaps a dozen people that I recently quit my full-time job. They all say the same thing: “Oh, did you retire?”

I’m 62, so it’s not an unreasonable assumption. But it’s just not accurate.

I’m not working in the traditional sense of what it means to have a job. After four decades, I’m no longer picking up a paycheck from a company or organization nor am I defined by a particular title or profession.

But we seem to need a title or label to classify each other when it comes to work. And calling myself retired doesn’t work for me. I have so much work I’m already doing- writing, creating, and (I hope) providing positive inspiration for life’s possibilities and rewards past age 50 to my growing group of subscribers and followers.

Retirement as a universal label is unrealistic in our modern life with many choices. There are variations on this post-career time of life. Being called “retired” is not a desired state of life for me yet others they gleefully adapt the title.

Isn’t it time we came up with more than one way to describe the satisfying lives we can create in our “prime time” years?

Retirement Was Once More Simplistic

Decades ago, there were just two ways to work when you reached your 50s and 60s: yes or no.

People often entered the workforce and stayed with the same company their entire working years. They put in the decades at their job and when their years of service tallied a certain number, their time was up- they retired from working.

Some workers may have picked up part-time jobs when they needed extra income, but there was a bold line drawn between work years and leisure years. A pretty black and white situation.

Now for those of us 50+, there’s many shades of gray that color the retirement years. We’ve been punched around by economic crisis (1991 and 2008) and turbulent world events (2001 and 2020) that have played havoc with that ability for a straight-line career with one company. We’ve had to become more flexible, more resilient to unforeseen changes, and sometimes had to rely on savings meant for retirement.

I know our parents’ work was hard and demanding, but I don’t recall hearing from them terms like “stress” and ‘burn-out” to describe their work experiences. These daily descriptions of our work life now seemed to grow along with the technological advances of the last 30 years.

While technology has made so many good things possible in our lives, I believe it has also made employers expect a higher output at a faster speed with more workload for individuals. This is often not a sustainable ask of employees from these profit-focused companies and has led to workers leaving full-time roles at younger ages.

To work or not to work has become a question that’s no longer simple to answer.

Segmented Retirement Styles

We now have many more ways to define the era of retirement from the full-time work treadmill. Some start even before the official date that we consider ourselves having “left the building.”

Preretirement (Working in Low Gear)

Many people are lucky to have found the work they love and that they are well-suited for. To them, it’s almost scary to think of life without their work structure, their co-workers, and possibly the status their position brings them.

Often business owners (possibly founders) stay on in a flexible-time role that allows them to still be involved in the work they love for the business they built. Others have risen to upper management, have built a team that carries out most work functions, and have less day-to-day management work.

I spoke with someone recently who has risen to the top of his chosen field, makes a generous salary, and has a schedule that provides plenty of flexibility for time away. As he put it, “Why would I retire? My job is not stressful and I’m not ready to walk away from the money.”

This stage is Preretirement- people are still working but they are winding down the demanding stages of work life yet not ready to plunge into one of the next phases of retirement. Some workers in Preretirement take a step back or down to stay with the company where they’re comfortable but without the demands they once had.

Sometimes the satisfied Preretirement worker is given a date by their employer that they must retire, often before they are ready. Then it’s time to choose one of the next segments of post-work living.

Redesigned Retirement (Working on our Own Terms)

The word “reinvention” is used quite a lot in news articles and on social media to describe the changes a lot of us make in our 50+ years. But I don’t buy it.

We really don’t need to reinvent- we’ve got a lot of high-functioning work tools honed for years. We can still use a lot of them to continue to work, but now we can choose where to apply them.

A lot of people who enter the Redesigned retirement phase have been in decades-long jobs doing what they are good at and earn to support a family, but they were not doing work they love. Others reached the goals they set for themselves but became disenchanted and mentally exhausted by what it took- and still takes- once at the goal. What they thought it would be isn’t what it is, or not what it’s become.

I’ve moved into the Redesigned retirement. After decades of successes and building a career, I’m now spending my time on work I really love. I’ve returned to what I was first passionate about as a teenager- writing and creating.

I’ve been gradually updating my work tools to add skills that allow me to create in today’s all-digital world. It was daunting to learn all of the new tech at 50+ years old while being surrounded by others who grew up with.

Daunting, yes; achievable, definitely. I’m glad I’ve given myself several years to re-discover my passion, get some practice, and learn what I needed to support this transition (I’d been “cheating” on my job with my writing passion for a while before I quit).

I also still feel the need to strive, as do others in this retirement segment. We feel we have unfinished work to put out into the world. Now, however, we work at the pace we need, with the values that are important to us, and with the balance we’ve been needing.

Realigned Retirement (Finally Smelling the Roses)

Retirement in the traditional sense of the word almost always includes a realignment, even for those who happily identify as retired with the old-school definition. They look forward to realigning their priorities from using most of their time to work to using most of their time for family, friends, and just having fun.

My happy-to-be-called-retired former CFO friend Amy says her Realigned retirement has included a shift in her definition of busy. Her daily tasks of grandparenting, exercising and participating in sports, connecting with friends, donating her time to her favorite causes, and traveling keep her life full but not chaotic. She says it’s a welcome relief from the overwhelming decades of juggling her home and work life, constantly moving in a zig zagging motion that felt unproductive.

“It feels so good not to run from point A to point B, trying to do it all, but never seeing what was between the two points,” she told me in describing her joy in retirement. “I feel like I’m very busy and I always have a lot going on, but now I also see everything that’s happening around me each day instead of just rushing through life.”

For those in Realigned retirement, they feel they are making up for lost time spent devoted to their careers. Now they can spend time they once gave solely to work to volunteer for non-profits or learn with classes or workshops. I’ve found few people in this phase who feel the need to pursue endeavors that make money- it’s as if they’ve found time more precious than money at this point in life.

What Does Retirement Mean to You?

Are you a few years from making the retirement decision and still think it sounds scary? I couldn’t even say the word for a long time- I called retirement the “R” word. Or are you happily settled into a new phase of life after leaving full-time work? I’d love to hear your thoughts on a revolutionized way to describe retirement- please comment below and let’s have a conversation about it!