Until now, you thought panic attacks were reserved for parents-to-be in the OB/GYN ward or prima donnas making their stage debut. Bursts of sweat were the domain of scuba diving Olympians as they gazed down their ominous 1,000-foot cliff, or tweens taking on their first-date dad. Stomach-sinking sensations were felt in the terrifying moments when those dreaded sirens screeched and swirling blue lights flashed, pointed right at you on a Friday afternoon as you drove home from work.
But now you know otherwise. The long-awaited Wednesday afternoon arrives for the retirement party in your honor. And you walk into what is supposed to be the best first day of the rest of your life. On Thursday morning you enjoy a brunch in bed, then tuck into a two-martini lunch and take advantage of one of those 4:00 pm dinners at a special discount for seniors. You drift from one late-night talk show to the next, never thinking about a bedtime curfew to prepare for the jolt of your dreaded 6 a.m. alarm.
But then, to your pain and surprise, it’s only next Monday morning and you’re already experiencing a trifecta of panic attack, sweats, and sinking stomach. What is happening? So it’s been a month or more since that fateful “retirement day” and it’s still not happening, whatever it is! By now, the honeymoon is over and you feel more and more rudderless, redundant, non-essential, inconsequential, irrelevant. It seems you have lost your balance. Your balance has gone south. Even your voice seems to have become less imposing!
Do not imagine for a minute that you are unique in the whole world. Thousands of colleagues (in fact, more than 10,000 daily) are joining their ranks, experiencing their anxiety and dealing with the ups and downs of retirement life. Let’s examine the sources of their apprehension (and yours).
First, whether you realized it or not, for over 30 years, your professional persona has been inextricably linked to your job, your career, your job. Perhaps even more than the structure of your family, your work defined who you were, gave meaning and purpose to your daily life, provided you with a modicum of power and prestige. Whether you were forced to give up that role or that thing freely to walk away, you could not, in any way, have anticipated the psychological jolt caused by your push or decision to walk away.
Second, unless you are independently wealthy, you suddenly realize that what has been a fairly lucrative and reliable paycheck automatically deposited twice a week no longer exists. The faucet has dried up, only to be replaced, in many cases, by a less substantial monthly retirement allowance. Right now, you’re too dazed with panic to calmly step back and realistically assess other sources of additional income, such as your 401K, Social Security benefits, investments, or real estate.
Then there’s the whole social thing: the daily chatter, gossip, and camaraderie that fostered lifelong, or at least fleeting, friendships. He never anticipated loneliness and a lack of daily companionship as by-products of his decision to retire. With whom can you now compete for fashion supremacy, for supervisory approval, for promotion in position? It never occurred to him until now that he would no longer be included in the office lottery, the Friday afternoon meeting at the local favorite cafe or bar, or the Saturday morning golf game.
It’s time to put down the breathalyzer, the tranquilizers, the hot and cold towels, the Tums. The thousands of colleagues and peers who have gone before you, and who are currently experiencing their own ambivalence and anxiety, can reassure you that help is on the way. If you’re willing to spend the time, effort, and energy, you’ll discover multiple resources outlining the strategies and successes these others have implemented and experienced as they transition to what we truly believe will be the best, most productive, and unabashedly nice phase. of your life.
Three keys are:
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Take as much time designing and preparing for your retirement life and work as you did selecting your major career. Explore the seven retirement pathways, individually and in combination:
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leisure life
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life as a volunteer
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travel life
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attractive new job life
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life as an entrepreneur
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Life as a “Creative”
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life as a student
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Recognize and discover your unique self, and give this be precedence in what you think and do No thing to assume
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Understand that you have years of value left to contribute… but his shape.
