What to Do to Retire Successfully. Martin B. Goldstein

are capable of setting their own boundaries, are usually more readily adaptable to retirement. No matter how involved with other matters, the retirement years are usually more isolated than the working ones and, the more an individual enjoys his or her own company, the more gratifying this can be. This is not to denigrate the joy of companionship offered in retirement homes and villages.

      Workaholics, those who relish work beyond all other endeavors and indulge this craving to the detriment of familial and social attachments, naturally should not entertain retiring if at all possible. These people usually have few pursuits outside of work and many would find the retired state wasteful and unfulfilling.

      Adaptability is a prerequisite character trait which can foretell how an individual will ease into retirement mode. People who have had different careers during their employment lifetimes, adjusting adequately to each change of venue, can usually be counted on to move on from one phase of life to another without great difficulty.

      Hysteroid and depressive individuals, who tend to exhibit extreme emotional responses to life’s changes, no matter what they might be, usually find retirement challenging. However, on occasion, relief from the stress of the need to perform at an expected level might even prove therapeutic.

      REGIMENTATION

      One of the most difficult tasks of adaptation to a retired state is overcoming the years of adherence to a pattern of behavior. Whether we are aware of it or not, responses to the stress of environmental stimuli become routine, and coupled with the added pressures of the workplace can cause subliminal or overt anxiety reactions. This is why we look forward to weekends and vacations, to get away from the cause of this discomfort. Over time these responses become an integral part of our makeup. At the extreme, some people always seem edgy, easily riled, even argumentative with or without any obvious cause. Some continually feel under some sort of pressure, with the need to conquer an ever-existing challenge.

      A successful retirement should serve as a perpetual vacation, a time to unwind from the regimentation of a former career and the anxieties of the past. It should be a time when the worries of younger years seem trivial and are put to rest, a time for healing the wounds of the spirit.

      NEGATIVITY

      Let’s explore two extremes in the workplace. The first is the outsider, who by personality or desire doesn’t fit in or shows no drive to progress in his job, perhaps getting little or no pleasure out of the work, one who feels cast out or even a victim of the bullying that unfortunately exists in many industries, the “office dupe” who is the butt of jokes. The other extreme is the attempted overachiever, the “lab rat” or “brown-noser,” who is often abused by pranks. For these individuals, no matter how motivated or dedicated they may be, work can be a living hell, because the negativity from fellow employees is felt as a daily punishment. To these men and women, absence from work can be seen as a blessing, a reprieve from the grind of employment.

      CULTURE

      Work has been glorified as a gratifying endeavor in the western world; however, in some other countries leisure has assumed much greater prominence. When one has been brought up to aspire to a certain goal, the attempt to achieve that goal is then accredited to be the highest aspiration. You work to live, but you live to luxuriate, to love, to enjoy, to pursue and experience happiness. Therefore, while you can achieve through useful endeavor, you can exhilarate and perhaps gain a greater sense of peace and serenity with a successful retirement. Under such circumstances, the retreat of a religious monk to pray and to meditate could be considered a form of retirement.

      ORIENTATION

      Sometimes I feel as though I must be a naturally lazy person to enjoy being retired as much as I do. Then I remind myself of the half century of continuous professional work I put in, often being involved in several different areas of endeavor at the same time. Early on I worked many hours, sixty or seventy each week. My wife sometimes kept my daughter up past midnight when she was still a toddler so I could have time to play with her. My wife feared that otherwise my daughter would not truly know her father. I feel that she was such a great mother, she more than made up for any deficiency on my part. My daughter says that we both were great parents and that’s all that really matters.

      I often wonder if the milieu I grew up in had something to do with how easily I have gone from a busy work schedule to retirement. I grew up poor, the son of immigrant parents. We lived in what is now called the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, in a transitional period for that neighborhood. I had many bright friends, who at a young age discussed worldly matters in quite an adult fashion. Today young people choose professional athletes or movie stars as their idols. We most envied the European nobility who didn’t have to work, living in luxury without monetary worries. Listening to our parents complain about hardships of the working poor—long hours and low wages—obviously had an impact.

      Being indoctrinated, at a young age, into a culture of living frugally because of need, orientation or desire during the Great Depression and fearing the next economic downturn had a great influence on the decisions I have made in steering a conservative course in my life. It is reasonable to deduce that I have been guided unconsciously to emulate the lifestyle of the idle nobility I romanticized as a child.

      SECURITY

      It can be frightening to voluntarily walk away from a good job that is challenging and entertaining to begin an uncertain, relatively idle future. However, it is not as devastating as having to acutely adjust to an unemployed state due to corporate downsizing or an unforeseen bankruptcy. In either case, proper preparation can mitigate the trauma.

      Longtime employment in one location can create a sense of security, belonging and trust. When this trust is broken, the harsh realization that each individual employee is ultimately on his or her own leads to the detriment of the sense of security. It is therefore important that each worker, whether low-level employee, self-employed, middle management or executive, understands that the comfort of their future and the comfort of their family is their sole responsibility. From the first day of eligibility, the worker should become knowledgeable about the pension benefits due him or her. Like the security all federal government workers have in knowing that a pension awaits them when they retire, all non-government workers should keep informed about the safety and availability of the benefits they can count on after they retire and the dollar amount they are due. If a union is involved, a representative should be sought out for clarification of the details. Many workers have chosen lower-paying positions with better benefits over higher-paying jobs with lesser benefits.

      Even in more secure situations, where there are adequate funds available, the uncertainty of market fluctuations, with severe downturns an ever-present danger, the decision to give up earning and to depend solely on investments can be a difficult one to make.

      HEALTH

      The state of one’s health is always a factor in determining if and when one should retire. Robust individuals, constantly reassured by comforting medical check-ups, often assume they are just as hardy as they were years before and feel they can take on a workload equal to or even beyond the capabilities of younger, less experienced competitors. Sometimes this is foolish and leads to dire consequences, but on many occasions this proves to be a true assessment of one’s vitality and ability. No one who can fully carry out his duties, loves what he does, is good at it and gains satisfaction in the adequate completion of the tasks laid before him should consider voluntarily retiring unless forced to do so by factors not under his control. One of those important factors is failing health.

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