Time is ticking for all of us. How do you spend your time each week? Answers from 125 individuals, ages 55-96, provide possibilities. I found both ageist and sagest responses, sometimes coming from the same individual, in my Johnston Retirement Survey for my book, Transforming Retirement: Rewire and Grow Your Legacy. Survey samples define retirement:
65, female (works 30 hours a week): “To withdraw—I don’t see any blessings in retirement.”
68, male (retired 1 year): “Boredom.”
72, male (retired 5 years): “I hadn’t anticipated a divorce.”
73, female (works 18 hours/week; volunteers 15 hours/week): “For my parents/grandparents, [retirement] meant no longer working. It is difficult for me to envision retirement—it seems, as I think about this, that I equate it with poor health. I think I am in the process of letting go of self-limiting beliefs.”
73, male (retired 7 years; volunteers 10-20 hours/week): “Helping my children enjoy life…being an activist to change our world for the better.”
75, male (retired 3 years; volunteers 20 hours/week): Sometimes I feel isolated when I’m not doing volunteer work, or otherwise in social situations…retirement allows me to focus on developing as a real person…it allows me to pursue my real passions.”
80, female (semiretired 20 years; volunteers 15 hours/week): “Time to make and keep connections with important people and the larger earth…treasure each day and let go of regrets.”
93, female (retired 29 years; volunteering varies): “No more days to go away to work…it’s a special time to use as planned.” (She uses expert sewing skills to mend others’ clothing in her assisted-living residence.)
Yes, retirement has the possibility of special time. Our perception of “time” is ever present in aging. Yet, there is timelessness to stockpiling wisdom. For all who maintain their cognition, and embrace possibilities, wisdom consolidation is available 24/7. As M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author (The Road Less Traveled), sagely stated: “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
Unfortunately, many associate aging with a narrowing, rather than a growing, self-definition. They find it difficult to value themselves, buying into our culture’s ageism. I recently heard a woman loudly proclaim, “I am old,” as if she expects others to cut her some slack for anything she does. Her investment in time appreciation seems limited. If seasoned citizens do not rewire and value their gift of life’s time, boredom can cut their interest-in-life rates.
David Romanelli, author of Life Lessons from the Oldest & Wisest, found many among the sagest: “An elder’s wisdom is often raw, unscripted, unbranded, poignant, and deeply personal…if you ask an elder to share their story…spend some time…they will teach you something that you cannot learn from even the most successful self-help gurus.”
Let’s urge everyone, regardless of age, to invest in possibilities. Transforming Retirement has numerous “Possibility Time” exercises.
Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz
530. Do you consider yourself more ageist or sagest?
531. What is on your possibility list?
Pearls of Peace: A Family Psychologist’s Circle-of-Life Blog 