Thanatology 2200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Sharing Space, Comfort Object, Enmeshment
17 Dec 2016
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Retirement and Reinvention
The transition to the third quarter of life: Retirement or reinvention?
During this period, the adult is renegotiating one’s relationship with time and
with the loss of the conception that there is much time left to do what one wants
to do. The transitin to this phase is marked by the importance of setting
priorities and deciding what is most important in the third quarter of one’s life.
One has to confront the fact that at age 50, 60, or even 70 one may have to gear
up instead of winding down. The retirement/reinvention revolution is more about
planning ahead to increase the quality of life in one’s later years. People do not
know how to live the years between 50 and 80. The lack of concrete measures
can be unsettling.
Today, when adults become 60, it is not a sign that you must stop working
because of the prolonged good health for many years.
Although once a passage of time characterized by living through memories, now
later adulthood has become a time of new beginnings.
To cope with the socioeconomic changes and with the wave of baby boomers
approaching 65, the age one is eligible for social security has slowly risen to the
late 60s. Many adults are now retiring so they can do something meaningful
rather than retiring from a job, career, or company. This stage in life has
become an adventure for many adults, rather than an ending or an experience to
be feared.
Losses experienced by adults during retirement and reinvention
Loss and transformation of identity
One reason it can be so difficult for many is that it involves not one transition,
but many. Leaving a job or a career involves much more than ceasing to work.
Work often provides an identity, a lifestyle, and maps out interpersonal
relationships. When one gives up a job or career, one learns how to stop
identifying oneself through his or her company, title, or industry.
Ibarra: we learn who we have become—in practice not in theory—by testing
fantasy and reality, not by looking inside. The most effective way to reinvent
oneself is by trying new things in practice. Ibarra basically says that the path is
marked by trial and error during which time it is not unusual for a retiree to start
on one path, find that it is not satisfying, and to resume searching, she believes
that for many adults this phase in life might contain a combination of the 2
approaches. This can be frustrating because adults in this phase of life expect
that they should know who they are. For adults whose work was central to their
identity, retirement may trigger depression. The greater commitment one has
had to one’s work, the greater the loss when that role disappears. For many
adults this transition may be experienced as a maturational loss and in some
sense a disenfranchised loss, as others may not validate the intensity of the loss
because of the personal growth that is observed following this transition.
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Some retirees do not experience an identity crisis because they are pleased with
their new status.
Loss of routine: search for balance
Some individuals are more comfortable with less structure, whereas others feel
adrift, not knowing how to spend their time. Many people in the phase between
enmeshment in a career and entering total retirement want to discover or
rediscover their passions.
Loss of routine and a structure sense of time can also lead to new focus on
creating more balance in one’s life. Time with self is what many adults fear
most.
We should be encouraging people to grow and embrace this aging instead of
simply accepting it (which is the norm).
Loss of or change in relationships
The emotional energy provided by workplace relationships cannot be
underestimated in terms of the degree to which some of these relationships must
be grieved. work furnishes a sense of place and belonging in a valued
community. This sense of place and belonging in turn provides individuals with
feelings of worth.
There is a need for attachment, which is served through marriage, partnership,
or close friends. There is a need for social integration, which is satisfied when
adults work together toward a common goal in a workplace. There is the
opportunity for nurturance, which occurs in relationships in which we care for
family, children, and friends. There is a need for reassurance of worth, which is
validated when our competence is affirmed by the relationships in our family,
community, or work.
Changes within the marital/partner relationship
For the majority of men, work has been more continuous, but for many women
work has been discontinuous, because they have moved in and out of the
workforce more frequently. Women have more opportunities to establish what
they enjoy in their leisure time and meet lifelong friends through the children.
This could give women an advantage in the reinvention process, as they may
feel more comfortable coping with the time at home as well as involvement with
the community and/or religious activities. Women secretly objected to having
someone around the house all say, sharing space that they considered to be
more theirs. For couples who have worked different shifts most of their marital
life, new excitement about being together more frequently can result in a
positive adjustment to retirement. For most couples, however, a combination of
both positive and negative experiences comprise this transition.
Another issue that emerges for couples during this phase is being out of sync
with regard to the retirement cycle. Some individuals may want to continue in
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their career while the other wants to stop. One might want to get involved in the
community while the other wants more time to travel and leisure.
Changes in Relationships with friends
Although most adults, particularly women, made friends wherever they were
living, time was scarce for intimate frienships. Friends who lived at a distance or
who were from an earlier stage in life tended to drift. During the third quarter of
life, the adult has more leisure time available to spend with friends. Close
friendships can provide the buffer to stress and pain. During this stage, friends
can become a substitute for family.
It is not easy to stay connected with friends at one’s former workplace for whom
work is still their major focus.
At this phase of life, when friendships are so important but do not go well, the
adult can experience emotional pain that can be reminiscent of adolescence. On
the flip side, because of the adult’s greater self-awareness, s/he can recognize
her or his own needs and move on to other activities that can offer new
friendship possibilities.
It is often strangers who are best able to help the adult who is in the stage of
reinvention.
Loss of financial resources
For some, retirement can bring about a time when they have the opportunity to
use the financial resources that they have saved over the course of their
adulthood. However, for other it is a time during which money becomes very
tight, as income from a job is no longer available and in many cases the adult’s
workplace does not provide a retirement plan.
Loss of or change in one’s belief system: the importance of spiritual growth
The adult may move toward deepending his/her sense of spirituality. For some,
formalized religion becomes important in this seach for a new belief system,
whereas for others solitude and/or therapy is crucial for deepening one’s sense
of self. At this phase of life the future beckons but is unknown, being optimistic,
even partly optimistic is crucial… is linked to survival and satisfaction.
Changes in relationship to one’s community
Many adults explore more fully opportunities presented by the community.
Community organizations are faced with the task of designing volunteer
positions that resonate more with the needs of this generation, which seeks to
make a difference in the world around them.
The process of change: Coping with the transition process
Schlossberg describes 3 important phases of the retirement process that she
encourages adults to pursue. The first phase is moving out, which involves the
task of letting go of your work role. The way to move through this phase is to
grieve. Some adults choose to deny this gried process as exemplified by a newly
retired director of an organization who decided to stay on at her organization as
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
During this period, the adult is renegotiating one"s relationship with time and with the loss of the conception that there is much time left to do what one wants to do. The transitin to this phase is marked by the importance of setting priorities and deciding what is most important in the third quarter of one"s life. One has to confront the fact that at age 50, 60, or even 70 one may have to gear up instead of winding down. The retirement/reinvention revolution is more about planning ahead to increase the quality of life in one"s later years. People do not know how to live the years between 50 and 80. The lack of concrete measures can be unsettling. Today, when adults become 60, it is not a sign that you must stop working because of the prolonged good health for many years.
