Retirement is both a privilege and a challenge

Forgetting what day it is isn’t a sign of senility – it’s easy when work and school are gone

JOAN BAEZ is 71. Paul Simon is 70. Roger Waters (touring Pink Floyd’s The Wall) is 68. And Leonard Cohen will turn 78 just after he plays here in September. All of them still touring, still crazy after all these years.

Seriously, why is 65 still standard retirement age? As I looked around the audience at the recent Simon concert in Dublin, I thought I’d rarely seen so many 60-somethings gathered together in one place – and how most of us looked pretty lively as we clambered up the steeply tiered stadium steps.

Many of us want to retire at 65; many want to go earlier, but the truth is, most of us don’t need to. So since 80 is the new 60, those of us lucky enough to be in good health really need to act our age and get on with creating a new, hopefully enjoyable, possibly productive, life.

Easier said than done, of course, if you’ve spent your life chained to an office desk.

Some months back, I wrote apprehensively about the prospect of imminent retirement.

There we were, me and thousands of public sector workers, anxiously working out our lump sums, checking our stamps and drawing up “to do” lists for the day after retirement.

That was four months ago. I had a parachute, in the shape of freelance work, but being liberated from office timetables was as challenging as I’d expected it to be.

Anyone who already works from home, who freelances, knows that it takes a lot of discipline to do this efficiently. The retiree (me) with a natural inclination to procrastinate will do so.

This is what I’ve learnt in four months of retirement: work does expand to fill the time allotted. The internet is a great time- waster (but useful, too. Did you know that Bismarck was responsible for setting 65 as the standard retirement age when he introduced German social security payments in the 1880s, at a time when most workers died before that age?)

Swimming early every morning in the Forty Foot is a guaranteed way to wake up. Great bunch of people there too, mostly retirees. I can take a five-week holiday without being on maternity leave. And then take a few more weeks’ holiday, if I budget carefully.

Working out a budget when my new income is less than half what it was before is tough. Okay, I pay less tax, but will it balance out? Seriously, should I really have another cappuccino with friends just because I’ve got time?

Forgetting what day of the week it is isn’t a sign of senility – it’s surprisingly easy when the markers of work and school are gone.

It takes more time than you’d think creating a new routine for yourself and it’s surprising how distressing that is.

After 40-plus years of knowing where you had to be and when, this shouldn’t be surprising, and I miss seeing office friends regularly, but office life? Not so much. I can have a two-hour lunch on a weekday and not feel guilty.

Old-age discounts should all be called something gentle to soften the blow (It’s l’Age d’Or on Greyhound bus tickets in Quebec).

Reading the newspaper slowly over coffee in the morning is a treat – but really, it can make you miss the day. The dog gets you out walking – but makes impromptu getaways hard.

Big decisions still wait to be made: more volunteering? Go back to study? New sport? Learn bridge? Common wisdom says it takes a year to find your retirement feet.

I’ve got the step counter (two in fact), the walking shoes, but still haven’t walked the Camino or even climbed Croagh Patrick – but I will.

I’ve come to appreciate that being able to stop working full time at 65 is a privilege as well as a challenge. For all the office workers/public sector workers retiring at 65, there are plenty of writers, artists, actors, musicians, accountants, doctors, lawyers, economists, shopkeepers, captains of industry, farmers and so on still working, either because they have to or want to.

It’s a privilege that my generation might be the last to enjoy: demographics and the crisis in the pensions industry in countries like the UK, US and Canada have seen a big jump in baby boomers still working after 65, some by choice, some from necessity.

In other words, 65 is an arbitrary retirement age and one certain to change in the years to come. From 2020, old age pensions will be paid at 67 instead of 66, rising to 68 in 2028.

And then there are those IMF suggestions – taking the medical card away from those over 70, means-testing the old age contributory pension – which if adopted, could send a lot of us back out on the road.

Move over, Leonard, Bob, Paul, Sir Paul, Joan, Bruce . . .