In 2005, I became certified as a Global Career Development Facilitator at 62 in the middle of a 17-year stint in which my content was geared toward helping people with disabilities find meaningful work.
In 2018, at 75, I still pictured myself as self-employed, trying to sell my disability-employment content online.
2018 was also the year Pam, my wife, and I decided to search for the right senior living community for us. We took two years to visit, research and compare seven different senior living facilities and finally decided to relocate from Madison, WI, to The Pillars of Prospect Park in Minneapolis to be near more of our family members.
That transition gave me a new appreciation for the four phases of retirement which took me 27 years to pass through.
And, thank you, George Dow, who recently spearheaded an OLLI course, “The Four Phases of Retirement” (see www.georgedow.com). George helped me recognize my own jagged journey into retirement.
At 51, I decided to quit my corporate communication job of 29 years to start my own consulting business in 1994. I felt “liberated” from the daily grind of office work.
After four years of making very little income, I finally admitted I was not cut out for the consulting world or corporate communication research. I call that my “disappointment” phase of retirement.
But a memoir I published in 1996 paved the way to an online content management job in 1999. It was for a nonprofit, where I worked full time for 10 years, writing and editing content about disability awareness and disability employment.
During another nine years after that, I had an opportunity to self-publish materials for helping parents of special needs children become “family career coaches.” Those 19 years were the “experimentation” phase of retirement, when I made a lot of connections but found I was not yet fully connecting with the people who needed my insight.
When Pam and I moved to The Pillars in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, I realized people of my age were not only finding their way through the four phases of retirement and the perils of the pandemic. They were trying to make sense of age-related limitations. This was my “discovery” phase of retirement.
I’m now dedicated to this one cause: using my experience with disability to help my fellow elders adjust psychologically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually to age-related vulnerability -- and provide them with the tools to share their insights and values with family and friends.
* When did you discover retirement had a new meaning for you?
Interesting. Dave also had a more difficult time with retirement than was true for me. Maybe it's because our society encourages/almost forces men to work. Even though we've come a long way, society still views women as secondary wage earners and pays accordingly. I wonder if part of that is the result of household and childcare responsibilities that continue to be in most women's daily task list??
I believe you're right on point, Brenda. I wonder if that "retirement orientation" challenge will show up more for women as they continue to outpace men in college in terms of numbers and assume more high-level responsibilities in business. Or, will they continue to show more agility than men and adjust more easily to the challenges that come with retirement?
In 2005, I became certified as a Global Career Development Facilitator at 62 in the middle of a 17-year stint in which my content was geared toward helping people with disabilities find meaningful work.
In 2018, at 75, I still pictured myself as self-employed, trying to sell my disability-employment content online.
2018 was also the year Pam, my wife, and I decided to search for the right senior living community for us. We took two years to visit, research and compare seven different senior living facilities and finally decided to relocate from Madison, WI, to The Pillars of Prospect Park in Minneapolis to be near more of our family members.
That transition gave me a new appreciation for the four phases of retirement which took me 27 years to pass through.
And, thank you, George Dow, who recently spearheaded an OLLI course, “The Four Phases of Retirement” (see www.georgedow.com). George helped me recognize my own jagged journey into retirement.
At 51, I decided to quit my corporate communication job of 29 years to start my own consulting business in 1994. I felt “liberated” from the daily grind of office work.
After four years of making very little income, I finally admitted I was not cut out for the consulting world or corporate communication research. I call that my “disappointment” phase of retirement.
But a memoir I published in 1996 paved the way to an online content management job in 1999. It was for a nonprofit, where I worked full time for 10 years, writing and editing content about disability awareness and disability employment.
During another nine years after that, I had an opportunity to self-publish materials for helping parents of special needs children become “family career coaches.” Those 19 years were the “experimentation” phase of retirement, when I made a lot of connections but found I was not yet fully connecting with the people who needed my insight.
When Pam and I moved to The Pillars in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, I realized people of my age were not only finding their way through the four phases of retirement and the perils of the pandemic. They were trying to make sense of age-related limitations. This was my “discovery” phase of retirement.
I’m now dedicated to this one cause: using my experience with disability to help my fellow elders adjust psychologically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually to age-related vulnerability -- and provide them with the tools to share their insights and values with family and friends.
* When did you discover retirement had a new meaning for you?
Interesting. Dave also had a more difficult time with retirement than was true for me. Maybe it's because our society encourages/almost forces men to work. Even though we've come a long way, society still views women as secondary wage earners and pays accordingly. I wonder if part of that is the result of household and childcare responsibilities that continue to be in most women's daily task list??
I believe you're right on point, Brenda. I wonder if that "retirement orientation" challenge will show up more for women as they continue to outpace men in college in terms of numbers and assume more high-level responsibilities in business. Or, will they continue to show more agility than men and adjust more easily to the challenges that come with retirement?
I was thinking something similar as I wrote my comment. Will there be a time when roles are less clearly defined socially?