Reflections on Retirement- Life post superannuation

As I stepped in to my fifties, the concept of retirement and the life after that was a topic that occupied my mind a lot which led me to think more on what is this concept of Retirement. As a HR professional, I must have dealt with several hundred people as they reached the age of superannuation. I must have done a lot of counselling and coaching to these people on financial planning and importance of keeping busy post retirement. However, the real meaning of the term retirement was always unclear except that, you stop working, quit your current employment and move to the next phase of life. Many definitions on what retirement is all about are available on several web sites and in several books; none of them gave me a satisfactory answer. What that next phase of life is was never clear. I always knew that retirement was not simply stopping the work but what was that new work was always unclear.

What was happening within me?

My own reflections on what was happening to me are most probably indicative of what must be happening to many people of my age group with of course some differences. These changes in me were clearly indicative of the need to change in to the next phase of life. Some changes that I experienced:

1.    Not having the same mental agility and mental stamina to do the operational tasks or routine work that I was otherwise very good at.

2.    I was losing interest in the active professional life that is full of time lines, execution schedules, pressures of performance, commitments that have to be met, etc.  

3.    Over time I developed new hobbies that are focused on physical fitness like trekking, walking, jogging, etc.

4.    I also developed new interests that are mainly spiritual in nature. I plunge a lot in these areas and therefore I am unable to keep pace with the professional reading, leading to my inability to keep professionally updated.

5.    Somewhere I was also not being diligent in my work, the way I used to be in the past which is mainly due to the lack of interest in those activities, leading to inadequate application of mind. I believe I was moving away from being details oriented person to being more holistic and strategic which is not a bad idea but without being details oriented it does not work in professional world.

6.    As I am getting older I have also realized that I was becoming more and more inclusive and open about the social, cultural, religious and political issues. The areas I was never very good at. I started taking more interest in these areas.

7.    I was however becoming more and more inflexible in the professional sphere, maybe, I was developing certain idiosyncrasies, may be developing strong opinions, etc. If not managed well, I knew it will quickly lead to my losing flexibility and adaptability that is so very crucial for the successful work life.

I guess, I was going thru a process of aging which can easily be well managed by taking up right vocations commensurate with the new interests, the new aptitude, new realities of physical fitness, and the changing times.

 I knew for sure that, time has come for me to move in to “Wanaprastha Ashram” phase. This will also mean to get disconnected from routine and just be available to family, society and the profession, if and when needed. This means longer time devoted for meditation, longer meditative morning walks, attending right sat-sang forums, participate in the discourses from the learned people, etc. coupled with right reading and discussions with the like-minded people and most importantly -  just being with myself.

Like most other Indians I did hear from the very young age the concept of the four stages of life namely:

1.    Bramhacharya Ashram or the period when you are a student,

2.    Gruhastha Ashram wherein you are a householder,

3.    Wanaprastha Ashram wherein you fade away from power, position and be available to the society and lastly

4.    Sanyast Ashram wherein you truly become a sanyasi.

I guess since so called educated people like us read a lot and can talk a lot on these topics over cocktails, I must have also done lot of talking, but I guess those were very superfluous talks without much of thinking.

I observed many of my friends and the relatives who had superannuated from their careers. The purpose was to learn from them on how to lead a life of a senior citizen. In most cases I observed that post retirement these physically and mentally fit colleagues and friends were supporting their families. In modern days the dual income families are a reality. I saw my friends supporting their grandchildren by baby sitting and management of the household of their children while the young couples were at work and the young grandchildren are at home and have to be taken care of. Most of the conversations with these senior citizens are just the same as they used to be when I was young and a new father. The topics are around school admissions, helping in the homework, problems and issues with young children, how to drop the children in to schools, need for tutions, coaching classes, how the education system is deteriorating, our times vs. new times, in some cases about diaper changing, etc. Conversations with the friends of Mugdha (my wife), are all about the old age issues of pain in the knees / back, Blood pressure and diabetes and in spite of all that, how these senior women have to manage the maids, the young grandchildren, etc. Conversations with affluent entrepreneur friends who are senior citizens are all about the succession issues, helping the young heirs succeed the division of enterprise / property, and related topics.

I quickly discovered that in reality none of my senior citizen friends had retired, actually they were doing all those things which they did as young couple. While they were young, they worked to bring up their own children and now they were working to bring up the grandchildren. I quickly discovered that presence of the grandparents in the family is no more a “highly desirable need” of the modern society but has become “must have need” thanks to the double income nuclear families. The thought of Retirement was therefore not very interesting; in fact it was frightening – I certainly did not want to do what I did 30 years back, actually what I am expected to do now is much more than what I did while I was young. Other thoughts like going on long vacations, indulging a bit in things that I never did, may be just idle around, etc. were certainly appealing but not necessarily satisfying.

While I was crossing the milestone of 60, this thought of what is retirement and what is life after that became far more predominant. This led me to do some more reading, some talking to wise people and some more introspection. Some ideas that emerged as a result of this “vichar-manthan” are illustrated below.

What is Retirement?

With the passage of time our own relevance in the professional world to which we belonged for 3 to 4 decades starts diminishing for the reasons illustrated above, which is a very natural phenomenon. As we grow older, we become better at something and start losing out on some things which we were otherwise very good at. We have to fully understand that this is a process of evolution and not necessarily aging, we have to become very comfortable with it. Intellectually I knew all this, but still, the real meaning of the term retirement was not yet clear and what do I do, after the retirement was still a big question.

Based on some interesting spiritual experiences that I went through during Pandharpur Wari, Satsang with few learned people, and some literature that I came across, the real meaning of retirement dawned on me. The Sanskrit word for Retirement is Nivrutti which means - Separated from the world. A deeper insight to the term - Nivrutta (retired person) is - he/she who has conquered the worldly or materialistic six evil tendencies like:

1. Kam – Lust, all types of Wasanas or desires
2. Krodh – Rage, anger
3. Moh / maya / mamata – attachments of all types: towards children, property, position / status, etc
4. Mad – Ego or Ahankar
5. Matsar – Envy
6. Lobh - Greed

I liked this definition of the term retirement or Nivrutti. Now, to me, the term Retirement or moving to the Wanaprastha Ashram has a completely new meaning. Now I know why our ancestors gave importance to this phase of life which is crucial before we can think of Sanyast Ashram. In this post retirement Wanaprastha phase of the life we have to remain focused on conquering these six evils that were otherwise an integral part of our lives in smaller or bigger proportion. Not an easy task, but one has to relentlessly work on this. This has to be coupled with the fulfilment of the five Runas or debts that we have.

More about these six evils of the illusionary materialistic world of maya and the five debts and the Wanaprastha ashram as understood by me in the next blogs.

Disclaimer: Some of the images in this post are downloaded from Google Images