A Gentleman’s Pre-Retirement Mission Statement.

By Erica and Karen

We came across this cute little visual in the New York Times, apparently created by a 52 year old gentleman who decided he had to make a retirement plan—though he called it a mission statement. We were impressed that someone so young was so motivated! We were terrible about planning! And mission statements are really beyond us.

His plan was pretty basic—ahead of the big event, try to save money, make some friends, and figure out where to live. All quite correct. (We women probably would not be quite as surprised as he that talking to people about retirement helps bring it into focus.) We loved his idea about splurging on an extraordinary experience with loved ones. Excellent allocation of resources.

Also correct, and amusingly, the visual portrays the gentleman as being in free fall until he ends up lying back comfortably, presumably celebrating a pain-free landing in retirement-land. A hopeful message.

Entertaining. And basically right. Except—you can’t really make a plan until you actually retire. You can, and should, make a financial plan. If, while you are working, you have time to learn to play the piano, great. (We did not.) But the emotional side of retirement is difficult to anticipate. You likely will mourn your lost career, and all that went with it—the people, the purpose, the paycheck. We, at least, needed to recreate the community and the purpose aspects of work. (The paycheck has proven difficult.) We suppose you can give all of that some thought before you retire. We weren’t perspicacious enough to do so.

He will learn that while post-career life is different, post-career people are still who they were while they worked. They likely will still need, or at least want, some of the job benefits that sustained them—structure, community, purpose. It is difficult to plan how to do that before you have stopped working.

And, of course, the gentlemen said nothing about the post-career clothing dilemma. Not part of his mission statement. For us, it was quite a part of our retirement reckoning!

We wish this gentleman a fabulous post-career life! Anyone with an actual mission statement deserves it.