retirement (Photo credit: 401K)
Monday I wrote about a TED video by Tim Brown, on the subject design. It challenged me to consider a question that I think is on the minds of many Boomers and Gen-Xers about how they are going to reinvent retirement in this modern world. The question is:
How can Boomers and Gen-Xers enjoy the benefits of retirement while at the same time remaining active, productive, and profitable members of our modern society?
What this question boils down to is a matter of lifestyle design. By this I mean how the whole of a person’s life (family, health, community, dreams, purpose, etc.) fits together in a homogeneous way and provides benefit and blessing both to themselves and to those they interact with on a regular basis.
You see, retirement, by my definition does not mean to stop working altogether (most people cannot/don’t want to do this) but to transition into a lifestyle that allows for you to be more in control of your time, talents, efforts, and the direction of your life travel.
How can a Boomer/Gen-Xer wake up in the morning and engage in activities that they choose, while maintaining an active, productive, and profitable life? What can they do to spend time with family, travel, volunteer, and create in a way that makes them happy, healthy, and a value to their community/society? What is their life-dream and how can they create a design plan that brings all the elements of that dream into fruition every day?
Most people don’t consider such things and as a result end up looking to get back into the workforce shortly after the big “retirement party.” One retiree who is 70+ said, “I am bored to death, I just want something to do.” Another said, “I want to continue to feel useful and valuable in my retirement life.”
Both of these folks retired like they had been told to and found that without some lifestyle design work in place they were doomed to “being retired.” What they really want is to design a lifestyle that will give them the benefits of retirement (slower pace, more control, and the pursuit of what they consider valuable) while still being active, productive, and profitable (financially capable for their own needs).
What about you? Are you planning for those great years of life where you can live out your dreams at your pace and according to your desires? What advice can you give to those who are just beginning the process?
Pingback: Lifestyle Design and Reinventing Retirement | The Doulos Group – Retirement Living
I love the term and concept of lifestyle design, because we cannot design anything by being reactive. We MUST be proactive to design something. Although I’m not a Boomer or a retiree, the lifestyle design concept still is extremely relevant to me. I grew up at the tail end of the age where you were still expected to pick a place to work, be there 35 years, and then retire. Those days, thankfully, are long gone. When the career model looked like that, we reacted too much and didn’t take the initiative to better ourselves.
I’m doing something now where I never truly retire. Even at 36, I want to do something that I could do in some form until I am not physically able to do it anymore. That’s a key point of lifestyle design, because it’s hard to be proactive when you aren’t enjoying what you do. Loved the post, and I’m not even your target market!
Dallon – you are absolutely right. The lifestyle design model blends every aspect of one’s life purpose for the duration of their whole life. Retirement only means a shift in the amount of work not walking away from it!
I plan on moving into the Rock Till Ya Drop … a community for musicians, artist of all types and everyone else who simply loves live music and the arts. While just a concept now, we plan to design and build this community as a grassroots, cooperative project.
Our mission is to provide very affordable housing (purchased or rented) to musicians and artist who have given so much to us for the last 40 or 50 years yet do not have the financial resources necessary to retire in a decent way. Unless you have made it big somewhere along the way, most musicians and artist didn’t have a pension or 401K to retire on (think starving artist?)
We plan to build this community of 1000+ residents around a town square anchored with a multi-purpose performance venue and surrounded by restaurants, bars, shops and studios. Additionally, we plan on having several ‘garages’ specifically designed for folks to jam or just hang out with the types of people we really would like to hang with.
Like I said it’s just a concept now but we are looking for others thoughts and ideas… got any?
Sounds like a very cool place. Would love to come visit some time. Keep me in the loop!