Unretired: how never retiring might be the right choice for you

It’s been programmed into the psyche for most of us – retirement is a time when you finally escape the grind of work and ease into a life of travel, leisure and relaxation.

Not so, writes Mark S. Walton in his engaging book, Unretired.

A quote from Hemingway begins his book. “Retirement is the filthiest word in the language,” the great author once wrote. “Whether by choice or fate, to retire from what you do – and what makes you what you are – is to back up into the grave.”

Walton notes that many older people don’t want to spend their retirement day playing golf “and then a round of dominoes and get back home around 4 p.m.;” they want to continue to be “a contributing member of society.”

As recently as 2022, he writes, “nearly 10 per cent of college-educated Americans aged 65 and older who had previously retired, changed their minds and rejoined the workforce…. By the year 2030, the number of working 65-plus-year-old Americans… will be greater than the populations of Los Angelese and Chicago combined.”

“Retiring from work is not right for everybody – in fact, for a solid majority of people, it can turn out to be a seriously bad idea,” Walton notes.

He notes that for those “who enjoyed and were effective in their work lives,” the “losses” from retirement include personal identity, sense of purpose, daily structure, and friends and a social network.

He adds that “the more successful you have been in your career, especially financially, the more likely you are to feel like a failure in retirement.”

To be “unretired,” he posits, is a solution. Walton lists three “essential building blocks of a joyful and fulfilling future,” namely fascination, flow, and generativity. The last term refers to “the drive to help others.” His book his filled with examples of those who continued to work at important jobs, found new careers, vocations, or started new businesses, and became “unretired.”

Susan Nolingberg was let go at age 60 after the company she worked for was bought. “I had a nice severance. I could have just done nothing, but it would not have been very personally rewarding to me,” she tells Walton 10 years later. “I don’t need to work, that’s not why I’m working, but I’ve been able to live a very nice lifestyle with the additional income in… I’ve done some amazing things in the past 10 years that I wouldn’t have experienced if I’d just hung it up.”

Ruth Johnson, also 70 and still working as a medical doctor, says “I really enjoy what I’m doing. I feel like it’s valuable, it’s helping people, and you can’t beat that really.”

Walton notes that the American Association of Retired Persons now goes by only its initials, AARP, because still-working Americans who were invited to join the association on turning 50 “didn’t want to be reminded they were growing older (and) didn’t want to join a club that included their parents.” AARP recognized that many of its members “continue to work full time or part time.”

That’s changing the look of the U.S. workforce, the book continues.

Chris Farrell of NPR is quoted in the book as saying “older workers are going to change the workforce as profoundly as women did.”

In a later chapter, Walton speaks with Dr. Michael Merzenich about how challenging your brain can keep it healthy even in your later years. “In a well-led life,” the doctor states in the book, “you would consider your brain fitness, your neurological abilities, and try to do what’s necessary to sustain these as close to the peak as possible at all times… what a gift it is that we have the ability to keep ourselves at that high operational level in our 70s, 80s, or however long we live.” Continuing to work and challenge the brain keeps it fitter, the book tells us.

Dr. Shep Nuland tells Walton that “those of us who’ve had challenging things to do in which every year brought greater growth in our profession, are much more likely to be insistent on greater growth once we’re older. We’re not going to sit still for decline.”

This is a great, well-written and inspiring book.

Even if you continue to work after age 65, full time or part time, a little extra income is always handy. You can convert your Saskatchewan Pension Plan to an income stream “any time between the ages of 55 and 71,” according to the SPP Pension Guide (retirement_guide.pdf).

SPP will continue to invest your contributions in our professionally managed, low-cost and diversified pooled fund. When it is time to turn savings into income, your choices include the security of a monthly lifetime annuity payment or the flexibility of the Variable Benefit.

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