Three years ago on this day I repatriated, and in a couple of months, I will have been retired for three years which feels an ample time to summarise and share some insights. I believe I can claim with confidence that I have made the most of these three years even given all the external horrors we have been through. So here are some reflections – for those who want to hear it.
1). Embrace it. Getting old is not a given, it’s a privilege not everyone can enjoy. Be grateful for every day you are alive and, hopefully, in good health. Think of friends who sadly did not live long enough to experience the pleasure of retirement.
2) If viable economically, retire as early as you can. There is so much to do after retirement that you need as much time as you can get while you are able to fulfil your dreams.
3) Make retirement definite. Cut off all ties to your professional career. I know it may be hard, but think: you have probably worked in more or less the same area for at least forty years. Can you make any further contribution to your field? If you are an academic, do you really want to produce another book, another article, another conference paper? At this point in your career you probably have scores of former students who can carry on and do it as efficiently as you, if not much better. After all, at least theoretically, every next generation of scholars should be better than the previous one. If you are a teacher you have younger colleagues who will hopefully continue to foster new generations of young people. If you are a writer, artist, performer – make room for new talents. If you are in business, surely some younger companion can make it thrive. If you are in public service… and so on. Be honest with yourself: Will the world go on without you? Let me tell you for sure: it will. And as they say: leave when you are on top.
4) What, then, can you ask, should you do with all your spare time? Think of all things you wanted to try and never had time. Maybe you wanted to be a gardener, but your family insisted that you go to university. Maybe you wanted to be an archaeologist, but you had to support your family and got into business instead. Maybe you have always secretly wanted to build model railways. Maybe you wanted to play an instrument or learn a language. Pursue your dreams. Preferably, start, or at least start looking around, before retirement so that on Day 1 you are already enrolled in a class or have a volunteer job waiting. And remember: this time, you don’t have to compete, you can quit if you get bored and want to try something else, and you will never get orders from anyone. Whatever you do, you do it entirely for your own pleasure. If in the process you contribute to saving the world, that’s a bonus. A way to reason with yourself is: by being happy you increase the overall amount of happiness in the universe, which is a huge deed.
5) join a community. You are probably used to have people around you: colleagues, students, people you meet at lunch, your elders and your peers and your subordinates. Suddenly you are on your own. Even if you have a partner and a family, you will lack a wider circle of like-minded, of people who share your interests beyond your profession. Almost every pastime will have a club, or several, physical or virtual. Search “Star Wars”, “Balcony gardening”, “Disc golf”, “Theorbe music”, “Basque cooking”, and you will find people passionate about the same things as you are. And in an unlikely case that you don’t find any, create your own club. It’s enough to be two to start, and you will be amazed how fast it grows.
6) maintain your connections. Stay in touch with your colleagues, on the understanding that you no longer talk shop – find other common interests: camel riding, UFO spotting, mushroom picking, collecting beer-bottle caps. Get in touch with those friends with whom you have been saying the past five years: “We must meet soon”. Nag them, invite them to something exciting. Perhaps one out of ten will respond, and that’s an achievement. Reconnect with your childhood friends, classmates, distant cousins. You will discover that fifty-year-old memories you share will bring you together even closer than you were once. But don’t be afraid to get new acquaintances. Within your new pastimes you will get to know new people so make sure you meet even outside clubs and events. Don’t be shy with people much younger than you. Think: when you were twenty somebody aged thirty was ancient. When you are 65+, age means significantly less. You can make new friends within a range of twenty years younger and, yes, twenty years older. While your recent students may be the same age as your grandchildren, once you no longer are in a teacher-student imbalance it does not matter.
7) all the above will only make sense if you are in good shape. You will doubtless have various ailments but as long as you are generally fit, physically and mentally, your life has a potential to be highly enjoyable. Of course there are things you cannot secure yourself against, but making your health a priority is essential. It doesn’t mean you have to spend three hours a day of your precious time in a gym (unless you like it). There are plenty of other activities: walking, running, biking, dance; and there are classes and clubs for seniors so that you don’t have to feel embarrassed next to perfectly fit youngsters. (Frankly, some retirees are much better fit than many youngsters). Try something you have never tried before. Maybe climbing or paragliding is your favourite, you just don’t know it yet. Don’t let absence of companions stop you, do it on your own. I am aware that some sports can be expensive, and you should not deny yourself anything as long as you can afford it, but there are plenty of things that are free and that can still make you fit and happy.
8) declutter. Whether you downsize or not, there is an enormous sense of freedom in getting rid of worldly possessions, and there are many gurus to guide you, but you can just use your common sense. Did you need dozens of smart outfits during your employment? Will you need them again? Keep two favourites, sell or give away the rest and free space in your wardrobe for nice leisure clothes. Do you really need five sets of dinner plates, seven teapots, ten table cloths and three dozen wine glasses? Will you ever use that cheese fondue pot that someone gave you for Christmas twenty years ago and that you only tried once? Some things will have a sentimental value, but at this stage in your life there is no point in keeping anything that “might come handy one day”. Those days will never happen. Keep only things you know you will use everyday or at least regularly. Ask your children, if you have children, whether they want anything – usually they don’t even when they are just about to start a household of their own. For many of us, the most difficult thing to get rid of will be books. Yet you are beyond the argument: “I might need it for work” or even “I will read it when I have time”. If you bought a book twenty years ago and still haven’t read it you probably won’t. And if you give it away and then suddenly feel an urge to read it, there are libraries. Think: how many books a year can you reasonably read? How many years have you theoretically left? Bookshelves lining every square inch of your walls were once a token of prestige and learning, even if you knew, and your guests knew, that you have only actually read a fraction of them. This attitude goes back all the way to 16th century or even earlier, when books were rare and expensive. Not any more. So keep only books that you know you will re-read and books that are dear to you, for whatever reason (signed by the author, gifted by a dear friend, books your granny read to you when you were five). Once upon a time first editions could fetch you a fortune, but today it has to be something really exceptional so I wouldn’t bother.
9) adjust your inner clock. My most unexpected and most welcome discovery has been that time flows at a different pace when you don’t have work to go to every day (even if you work from home and just go to your desk). Everything you do you do slower, and everything takes longer – and it’s not simply fine, it’s the whole point! It doesn’t matter if you haven’t finished something you planned in the morning because you have all the time in the world. Maybe you got distracted and did something else, just as exciting, instead. Or maybe you were enjoying whatever you were doing so much that you didn’t want it to end. Or maybe you just needed to wind down and look around and have a quiet cup of tea – a luxury you couldn’t allow yourself before. You can even emphasise this slow pace: walk deliberately slowly paying attention to the environment, move slowly around your dwelling. Don’t multitask. We think that by multitasking we save time, but in fact we waste time because we are never fully engaged with whatever we are doing. Pay attention, live here and now. Have you noticed this funny sculpture by your local bus station that you have passed hundreds of times? Have you observed how the rose bush under your window has grown since last year? Have you considered the pattern on your plates and the exact shade of green on your curtains? Suddenly your life is so much richer in experience than before. Rather than saying, “Where has this week gone?” you say, “This has been such a full and exciting week!”
10) Keep rules and routines you enjoy and ditch those you don’t. If you have always hated that alarm clock ringing at six, throw it away and sleep as long as you wish in the morning. Have breakfast in your dressing gown – or in full makeup if you prefer. Make the bed, cook meals, wash up – if it mattered to you before. But if it didn’t, maybe you will discover that it does now because you will spend more time at home and want it to be neat. Absence of schedule may feel frustrating so make a schedule for yourself, based on your pastimes: yoga on Monday morning, baking club on Tuesday afternoon, and so on. Shop for groceries on the same day of the week. Water your plants at the same hour. It will bring structure into your life, without creating pressure. Because you are completely free to break your own rules.
11) Once again – and I know it is pathetically trivial – wake up every morning grateful that you are alive and in anticipation of wonderful things that the day has in store. If by the end of the day nothing spectacular has happened, you should still be grateful and hopeful about the day to come.
