What to Do to Retire Successfully. Martin B. Goldstein

kill himself and career criminals commit crimes just to be re-incarcerated. In advanced societies we have been so indoctrinated with the work ethic that after decades of being employed and befriending coworkers (sometimes making them our closest or only friends), being deprived of this existence can cause feelings of sadness.

      There are varying degrees of depression associated with the older years, sometimes exacerbated by the loss of the employment environment. Symptoms can range from feelings of sadness to extreme withdrawal and bouts of weeping. Withdrawal can be manifested in a loss of interest in things previously enjoyed, isolation from family and friends, a loss of libido or, at worst, suicidal ideation. Those who voice suicidal thoughts openly should always be taken for professional care. Never downplay suicidal remarks. Most people who attempt suicide have spoken to someone about such feelings before trying to harm themselves.

      Psychotherapy should focus on the learning and psychological incorporation of the skills of adjustment to a life after work.

      ACCOMMODATION

      Whether you are the victim of downsizing, have been fired for cause, have become disabled, have run into the age barrier of the charter of a firm, have been offered a severance package from a company or government agency or simply have realized you can’t or just don’t want to do the job anymore, retirement is a compromise with reality. Like the baseball pitcher with a sore arm who has lost his velocity and the football running back who has an injured leg, the time has come to make the psychological accommodation to a new phase of life. For some this will be easy but for others it may be much more difficult.

      In my experience, those individuals who have chosen to work in industries where there is usually a seasonal break or layoff, like school teachers and construction workers, adapt more readily to retirement regimens. Also, those people who are not intimately involved with the intricacies of the work they do, who may be marginal to decisions regarding their status and therefore have little emotional attachment to the work or have never focused in on one career choice but have moved on from one job to another with periods of being idle and collecting unemployment benefits and, later on, Social Security payments, have relatively little difficulty adapting to a retired lifestyle. When the job you do is only a means of making a living and the people you are associated with at work are just casual acquaintances, leaving for a more relaxed environment is no big deal, if you have enough money. The difficulty comes when you don’t have enough money.

      The psychological concern arises with workers whose lives have become so entwined with the regimentation of their work, sometimes to the detriment of family and other aspects of their lives, that they just don’t ever want to quit and don’t know when it’s time to “throw in the towel.”

      The process I call deregimentation to aid the marginal cases, who can then overcome their difficulties and enjoy a peaceful retirement, will be covered in the Practicality chapter of this book. Attention will also be given to individuals who should not choose voluntary retirement.

      Be aware that various emotional aspects of retirement can become the exhilarating highs of a carefree existence or the throes of despair if not adequately prepared for.

      Hopefully, if the advice and formulas given in this book are adhered to, the reader will experience what I have, a delicious icing on the cake of life.

CHAPTER 2

       The Practicality of Retirement

      Not all people in a position to choose should consider retiring. Workers who are obligated to retire at a certain age or because of their physical inability to perform their duties properly may have no choice. Neither do those individuals whose positions are superseded by technological changes in their industries.

      WHO SHOULD RETIRE AND WHO SHOULDN’T

      The questions to be considered are: Are you ready and what will you do after you are no longer employed? Can you afford to retire? Do you want to retire? Have you properly prepared for retirement? Are you psychologically ready to change your life?

      The best answers to these questions can be found in self-awareness, because ultimately the answer must come from the individual and how well he or she knows him or herself. How much is your life tied to your work? Do you have sufficient activities and hobbies to sustain your interests? Many people go through stages of their adult lifetime unaware of who they truly are. Bound up in obligations to others, they have consciously or unconsciously suppressed their own true desires in fulfilling their duties to occupation and family. They have become what they do and not who they are. The more you know yourself, the easier it will be to make retirement decisions.

      If you have insufficient funds, find yourself unemployed and cannot sustain yourself on unemployment benefits, the answer is simple: you must try to get another job, even if it means retraining in a different industry or starting a business, no matter how humble. These are simplistic solutions to devastating situations and age or infirmity may make them impossible. In conditions such as these, retirement is not even a consideration. However, in this book we will address the positions, needs and desires of those individuals who do have a reasonable choice to make and the ability to do so. To continue working or not? To start a new venture or drift into a state of continual vacation?

      There are many aspects involved in the assessment of one’s state of preparedness for retiring and we will explore them.

      PRIDE

      I shall never forget an experience I had many years ago while on vacation in Florida. While strolling through a marina, admiring the large boats docked there, I came upon an older man polishing the chrome rails running along the bow of a huge yacht and crying. I asked him what was wrong. Could I be of any help? He told me he had made a terrible mistake. A year earlier, he said, he sat at the head of a large table in a New York City office as the chairman of the board of a company he had helped to create. He was a “somebody.” Now, a year later, after taking voluntary retirement and ceding his power to another, he considered himself a “nobody,” doing the work of a deckhand, polishing chrome. He had believed that devoting himself to the object of his vacation time, his yacht, would bring him the joy he sought, not understanding that his prime pleasure was in administering to his real “baby,” his business. This sense of loss of self-pride and the admiration of others brought this still-vital man to a point of depression. He was not ready to relinquish the reins of power that had been the source of his pride.

      Despite being well educated and affluent, this gentleman had insufficient insight into who he really was and what his personality makeup required for contentment at that time of his life.

      PERSONALITY TYPES

      Personality can predetermine one’s relationship to work: the degree of motivation, the amount of enjoyment in accomplishment, the attachment to the work milieu, the camaraderie felt toward fellow workers and the ability to easily (or with difficulty) exit this existence.

      Compulsive individuals who readily become regimented, adhere to the discipline of the workplace and are prone to over-evaluate the fact of accomplishment may find it more difficult to leave familiar surroundings, while those who are more easygoing and apt to consider work as a means to an end may find it easier to transition to retired status.

      Dependent individuals may, for various reasons—a lack of a social existence outside of the workplace, a need to replace an unpleasant home environment or the creation of a surrogate familial existence—find it difficult to divorce themselves from the work atmosphere. Whereas those people who are more independent, perhaps more used to working by themselves, especially the ones