OpinionsPublic EngagementLife transition in age

Life transition in age

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It’s already time, and I have to go home. This expression had become my automatic reaction now when the office wall clock strikes at five in the afternoon, which was different when I was yet younger and idealistic. At my prime age, the signal of going home from work was when I finished a task which I did not want to wait the next day. I was fast to produce results! And I enjoyed now the outcomes of how I did things in the past–a form of delayed gratification. No regrets, even if I missed many things to enjoy while growing up. But is going “slow” now illustrates a behavior change due to aging? Is it all physical?

I find this topic interesting to pursue and write about, and I have some questions for those who are of this age cohort. If you are approaching your 60th year now and is still employed, do you have similar feelings? If true, what are the possible reasons? Is it because your priorities have changed, and you want to use your dwindling time to go for them? Perhaps, it may be different among those who have not yet felt the change because they have the option to stay and retire only when they reach the compulsory age.

Moreover, is it because you cannot do more than what your body can do due to failing health? Or is it because you have reached your limit and drained now? Or it is the too much expectations of your work but without the needed support from your superiors? Or because you already achieved what you had aspired for yourself and your family? Or you want more time now to be yourself, with your family and friends, and with the things you have produced or accumulated through the years.

Perhaps, these questions come in this stage in our lives as humans when we are in another form of transition–between optional and compulsory retirement. We have passed the four major life stages described as infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, which developmental psychologists still classified into sub-stages. So those in their 60th year now, you are in the middle adulthood stage. You have the option to retire from paid employment, legally, or to wait until you reach 65 to receive a notice to go, and you do it either happily or reluctantly. Operationally, you are considered senior citizen, elderly or older person–the last is a better term.

But let’s go back to the question of why some who are employed, either in private or government offices, aimed to retire before their 65th birthday.

Economically, they do not worry anymore, given their excellent retirement plans, particularly those from government service like my high school friend, and have substantial personal savings to sustain their basic and medical needs. Their children are already settled and economically stable or doing well in their professions. They no longer worry about their children whom they had successfully prepared to start a life of their own.

Socio-psychologically, the social evolutionary success they now enjoy drives them to look after themselves and to experience certain things they missed because they were so busy with work during their productive years. I know of several couples who regularly travel to various places within and outside the country to visit their children, relatives, and friends as they are yet physically able. Some enjoyed caring for their grandchildren, which they failed to experience adequately with their children. Now, they have money and enough time to enjoy all these.

Civic conscious older persons, and already economically stable, must have decided to retire earlier because they love to serve or help the institutions of their preference. They do so through their memberships in church organizations, environmental movements, consumer rights advocacy groups, women’s organizations, and so on. They spend their money and time for other people, which they believed has added social meanings to their lives. I also know of former educators who retired earlier and served as consultants to some academic institutions and non-government organizations. They now enjoy flexible time in their professional engagements after retirement.

And in my conversations with colleagues about their plans, if they would retire between the ages of transition, the common theme was to realize what they promised to do when they would finally move away from regular employment. Some intend to manage a farm that they had acquired or inherited from their parents while others think of maintaining a vegetable or flower home garden for business or pleasure. Some older persons aspired to operate a small food enterprise or to focus on artworks–the latter is a passion they have temporarily abandoned. And there are still many other activities they thought of as they are moving toward another kind of productive life but without stress.

But note that the matters I discussed here are from the perspectives of the middle class older people whose quality of life significantly differs compared with those who live outside of regular employment. The latter must have different plans.

_____________________________________

Author’s email:
[email protected]

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