Retired? From Your Career. Not From The World.

By Erica and Karen

If you had a great career for four decades, you became experienced and effective at dealing not only with the mandates of that career but also with people and crises and dramas of the sort every serious career inevitably includes. You became an integral part of the wider world. `

When you come to the end of that career, you are not going to fall off the earth. If you want to go sit by yourself in a rocking chair and watch grass grow, you have earned the right to do that. But most of us do not—especially if we realize we have three decades ahead of us.

When you retire, you will be leaving behind the quotidian obligations of a job. Which means you are free to use your talents and skills in some other way. That is your reward for making it to the finish line. If you want to use those talents and skills in a purposeful and worldly way, you have earned the right to do that too.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. We were astonished when, after we retired from very hard charging jobs, people with whom we had worked the day before immediately began to smile sadly at us and to say things like: Oh, you must really be enjoying relaxing all day. Or: How rested you look. Or: I wish I could just play all day, too. Why on earth would they assume we had become different human beings, literally overnight?

When a lot of people talk at you like that, you may start to think that retirement does mean that your brain has suddenly atrophied, and that you really will soon decide to go sit in some rocking chair. That retirement really does mean you are no longer the person you were during all of your working years. And that there is no longer any place for you in the active world.

Don’t succumb to that retro thinking.

In the olden days, that is to say, the 1950s, men who had lived hard lives, and had gone through two wars, were grateful to take off their harnesses and relax in sunny climes for a couple of years with their wives and other couples like them. They were tired, they did not have long life expectancies, and they did not benefit from the public health advances that were being made at that very time. Relaxing for a few years was exactly the right thing to do.

But that model does not fit us.

• First, we are women. We want different things from our post-career lives. Our workplace experiences were very different from those of the men of the 1950s. We fought for our careers, and demanded to be players in an increasingly complex and highly connected universe. We changed the workforce and the world. And we loved being in the mix. We still love it. It’s our world, and we intend to stay there.

• Second, we have long, and healthy, lives ahead of us. We are likely to be mentally acute and physically energetic for decades.

• Because of one and two, we’re not going to become potted plants for thirty years. We want purpose in out lives, and we want to stay connected. We have the wherewithal—mental, physical, and financial—to achieve those goals.

• And we are valuable. We are not climbing the ladder any more, because we got to the top. We know how to do it, so we have much to offer those who are making the same climb that we did.

Let’s get the message out.

We need to start by seeing ourselves clearly as the still-vital women that we are. Then, we need to make sure others see us the same way. It will quickly become obvious that we belong in the wider world, and the wider world will benefit from our being there.

That’s Lustre’s mission. If it is yours too, we’d love you to join us.