Just Retired? No, This Need Not Be Your Future.

By Karen and Erica

Are you among the many people whose last official day at work was December 31, 2022? Were you dreading that day? Looking forward to it? Did you enjoy your party, where everyone toasted you, and said they wished they were in your shoes, and asked you about all the fun stuff you were going to do. Cheers!

Now that it has been a month, do you find yourself in an unexpected place? A place where people seem to think you are not who you were a month ago? Do you suspect, when they offer congratulations after you say I just retired, that they don’t mean it ? Are you wondering whether you are lost in space?

Don’t panic. Yes, everything has changed, and for a while you might find your post-career status unnerving. You will have to go through some stages before you realize that you really are in an exciting new world where you can decide what’s next. Mostly.

So what’s going on?

What’s going on is that a lot of people on the planet think that retirement is still the way it was in the 1950s. Back then, most of the people retiring from decades-long jobs were men, and they were tired. They had lived and worked through a depression and two world wars. Their wives were pretty tired too. Their life expectancy was pretty short—a few years. They were pleased to spend their last few golden years together, with other retirees, in a sunny place, playing golf and having fun, and driving around on the new highways, with a new car.

Everything has changed since then. The women in the first large wave who worked for decades at demanding careers outside the home are retiring. They have a thirty year runway. Perhaps because they had to fight to get a seat at the table, they are not ready to be sidelined just because their career ended. They want to stay connected, and they want purpose. They might not want full time jobs, but they do want to use their distilled experience in a meaningful way.

They know who they are and what they want, but few others do. They are masked by images of 1950s retirees that just won’t go away. And if they are women, retirement is age-linked, so they are immediately seen as little old ladies the moment they retire.

We need to change the picture. We’re new. We’re different. We will be around for decades. We have a lot to offer. We are determined to stay in the mix. We are not the least bit interested in spending the rest of our lives in rocking chairs.

Now that you have retired, join us! Together, we can expand the vision of retirement. We can work in new ways, keep connected with those coming up the ladder, and do all kinds of things we never had time to do before. Your future is yours to shape in this new era.

When you are ready, start thinking about where your past accomplishments will lead. Get excited. And start moving forward. Congratulations!