Time to Power Down?
Looking at retirement as a time to ‘power down’?
Most people in positions of responsibility in business or public service see ‘retirement’ as a time when they no longer have to ‘do’ anything. A time for rest and recuperation, a time to escape from the stresses and anxieties of the last 40 or so years of ‘employment’, whatever it might be.
Certainly, there is time for a ‘honeymoon’ period after we leave ‘work’ but we soon run out of two things we need for us to keep going in a full and active life.
Funding, or money, and Purpose, or things to do.
You’d be surprised how quickly the ‘bucket list’ gets completed.
Making a Difference
Over the last 40 years or so we’ve been making a difference, serving a purpose and creating our own significance. But now it’s time to ‘power down’ and rest – or at least that’s what society would have us believe with the way ‘seniors’ and ‘pensioners’ are portrayed in the media, particularly in advertising. There’s very little discussion of the possibility people can still make a difference, and I mean a big difference, after they are expelled from ‘the world of work’.
The root of the problem lies with our perception of ‘age’, in particular chronological age. There’s a phrase ‘Nothing is certain but death and taxes’ which has been attributed to Daniel Defoe and Benjamin Franklin. Death is still certain (taxes may not be in some cases) but what isn’t certain is when it’s going to happen. My brother died at 15 months, my mother at 94 years.
The Scrap Heap?
The same is true of our productive ability and capacity. There’s a massive amount of research on this, much of it based on the somewhat suspect Law of Averages, but the general trend is for high intellectual capacity and productivity to last well into the 70-90 age bracket. ‘Common knowledge’ however is still based on an era when ‘work’ was far more physically based than now and goes back to my grandfathers’ days when you were ‘past it’ or ‘on the scrap heap’ by 60 or so and at your peak between 40 and 50.
So why don’t we carry on ‘at work’? The answer is largely political. If the ‘elders’ don’t move on there will be no room for younger people to build their careers. This is evidenced by how difficult it is for people over 60 or even 50 to get another job in the event of redundancies or failure of the company they worked for. It’s almost impossible to get back in at the same level of pay and responsibility.
Who Are We Now?
We need to take a new view of ‘life beyond work’ by which I really mean life after employment.
We are not ‘pensioners’, ‘seniors’, ‘senior citizens’ or ‘third agers’ – these all imply and conjure up a somewhat discriminatory ageist view of who we are. Neither should we, as we did before, define ourselves by what we do. In this new life we’ll do lots of things, we’ll explore new possibilities and adventure into new ‘worlds’.
Power Up
In this world after work its time to become an explorer or an adventurer – or both! So instead of ‘powering down’ we need to ‘Power Up’, to reignite our passions and our curiosities. We came on to this planet to explore and experience new sensations and now’s the time to get started – or get started again – but first, as if we were going to climb a mountain, we need to do our preparations and get to Base Camp. This is what the ‘Power-Up’ transition programme is all about.
