Retirement Planning That Works

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10).

I love the beauty in the Hebrew language that the root word for both worship and work is the same: avodah.

This should lend some insight for all of us on the meaning of work.

In the Industrial Age, work became a four-letter word, saddled with the baggage of soulless tasks and exploitive industrialists. In the Modern Age, when the majority of us trade intellectual, relational, and experiential capital for a paycheck, the very definition of work is going through a revival. We are squarely in a Renaissance period in the evolution of what work means to our lives. In many ways, we find ourselves in our work. We discover who we are and who we are not. We discover our strengths and weaknesses. But at a deeper level, we find affirmation of our purpose on this planet and of our potential to positively impact others.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl states that each of our lives resembles the work of a sculptor who chips away everything that is not to reveal what is. Our work, in many respects, is a process of chipping away at the things that we are not to discover who we are. We are literally hammering out our values to someday reveal the absolute best form that we can become. We can no longer afford to gloss over or ignore this core discussion for the next generation of “retirees” (for lack of a better term). We are, in fact, “searchers” or “remodelers” of our own lives more than anything else.

An irrefutable fact of our times is the potential collision at the intersection of life where retirement meets our need As people seek to carve out a meaningful existence in the expanding middle-aged years, they are seeking wisdom and direction regarding what specific role work will play in that existence.

As people seek to carve out a meaningful existence in the expanding middle-aged years, they are seeking wisdom and direction regarding what specific role work will play in that existence. and desire for work. A trend portending in this direction is the recent proliferation of “retirement coaches.”

REDEFINING WORK

To help understand the role of work across the various stages of life, let’s start with a broader definition of work and discuss its role in our lives. Here’s how I define work:

An engagement that brings value to others and meaning to me.

As we witness the great, demographically driven expansion of the stage we call middle age, we clearly don’t want to sit around and watch our midsections expand as our middle years drag on. The trend of people choosing to work into their 60s, 70s, and even 80s is now a fact of life.

Whether people choose to work for economic reasons, existential reasons, or an amalgam of the two, it is indisputable that the trend toward working longer is part and parcel of the retirement discussion. Whether we want to or have to, we can no longer separate work from retirement—and that’s good news for all of us.

The bottom line is that the retirement pitch for the last generation has focused on the benefits of leisure, but those who enter it full-time are finding that leisure alone cannot deliver the life satisfaction they seek. Individuals migrating from full-time contributors to full-time consumers cannot help but feel the existential shock to their systems. Self-indulgence is a poor prescription for a satisfying life. When some self-indulgence is balanced by service, relationship-building, and the exercise of aptitudes, it becomes a completely different story—with a much happier ending.

For good reason, over the past several years, we’ve primarily been focused on the financial challenges surrounding retirement. What we hear far less about are the nonfinancial retirement challenges that people face:

→⃝  Sense of identity loss. You were Dr. Jones for 40 years. Who are you now? We are literally hammering out our values to someday reveal the absolute best form that we can become. →⃝  Social and relationship challenges. What if you actually enjoyed the people you were working with or calling on? →⃝  Change or reduction in mental stimulation. Can Sudoku really fill the bill? →⃝  Psychological issues related to not receiving a paycheck. Inflation can quickly make you paranoid about going out for dinner. →⃝  Extra time to fill in the day. Are you wandering in the garage for something to break so you have something to fix? →⃝  Anxiety or depression. Your spouse doesn’t seem too thrilled to have you around 24/7, does she (or he)?

These are the real, existential risks of retirement that we must wrestle with. Add to this list concerns about money, inflation, and uncertainty in the financial markets, and it’s no wonder that more and more people are coming to the same conclusion: it works to work. And that doesn’t necessarily mean full-time work, but enough to meet your emotional, social, and intellectual stimulation needs.

The new “retirementality” will be different for every individual. But the critical conclusion is that some form of work (paid or unpaid) should always be a part of your life because it provides more than a paycheck.

And, you were created for good works.

This article was published in our Faithful Steward magazine, a quarterly publication filled with encouraging stories, biblical teaching, and practical tools to help you grow as a wise and joyful giver. If you'd like to begin receiving Faithful Steward, consider becoming a FaithFi partner.