the importance of work

Theme: identity, purpose, & meaning are found in work - this is all lost upon retirement.

Most of us have to work for most of our lives to make money - to pay the bills/rent/mortgage, raise the kids, eat, move around, pay for the gear to go fishing or hunting, buy tools to make stuff...even to save for our retirement.

Some people are fortunate enough to enjoy their work - for them it’s a vocation, a calling, a fulfilling and extremely satisfying way of making a living. For others it’s a drag, demanding, tedious...a schlepp.
Either way, many of us don’t realize the extremely important roles work plays in our lives. Other than its pros and cons, work provides us with a meaningful and purposeful role in life, as well as all-important social connections. In fact, many of us define ourselves by the work we do: “I’m a mechanic”...”I’m a barber”...I’m a painter”.

 Unfortunately, it can be all-too-easy to mistake our jobs for our lives.

This error can become painfully evident upon retirement when we find ourselves missing the purpose, direction and social interaction which was provided by work. Suddenly, there may be no good reason to even get out of bed in the morning, or, if we do so, to change out of our pajamas, or go past the letterbox.

We may find ourselves in a period of loss and grief.
Work made us matter. It provided self-esteem, cameraderie, stimulation, a sense of life direction.

This experience of loss has been described as: “like a roller door coming down....looking down the barrel of a gun...being in a world falling apart....experiencing a complete loss of motivation and inspiration...becoming a dead man walking”.
For sure, the prospect of decades of daytime TV ahead provides a bleak future.

We men like to solve problems. Retirement is the biggest problem we will ever face, and we will have to do it on our own. Unfortunately many men find retirement an extremely stressful event - one for which they are ill-prepared. Many do not know how to cope. Given the events described above, they can become isolated, feel obsolete, lost, meaningless, and face a future which holds nothing for them.

Depression, illness, and early death are proven to be the inevitable outcomes of this situation.

However, there is hope - if we can develop successful coping strategies to survive.

In his book “The Psychology of Retirement”, Derek Milne identifies two basic coping strategies: one successful, the other definitely not so.

In my next post I will discuss Milne’s findings in more detail.