“Don’t trust anyone over 30!” This was one of the battle cries of the “Baby Boomer” generation during the 1960’s. It is sobering to realize that these same people have reached or will soon reach the age of retirement. While the media is saturated with information and recommendations for the baby boomers regarding the need for an adequate retirement income, little or no thought is given to the emotional needs and challenges of the retiree. This is unfortunate as there certainly are many stressors related to retirement.

Consider the following vignette:

Several years ago, my brother-in-law and I were watching a group of children playing together at a neighborhood birthday party. At one point, he pointed to one particular child and said: “That child needs treatment.” I was bewildered. At that time I had been a practicing psychologist for almost 25 years and I had known that child for many years, yet I had never been cognizant of any emotional issues. Furthermore, my brother-in-law is not a mental health professional. What was he noticing in a brief observation that I had not discerned over the years? Finally, with some trepidation and embarrassment I asked what he had seen. “Look at that overbite!” he exclaimed. My brother-in-law, you see, is an orthodontist. We were both watching the same child, but from our respective professional perspectives.

Yes, our jobs and professions not only help us define how we view ourselves, but to a large extent they can affect the way we view the world. It is, therefore, understandable that retiring can lead to an emotional upheaval, resulting in a loss of self-esteem and a depletion in one’s sense of purpose.

In 1996, Fortune Magazine published an article about Lee Lococca, the man who brought Chrysler back from the brink of bankruptcy in the 1980’s. He had retired for about three years, but then returned to work. He stated that his three years of retirement were more stressful than his 47 years in the auto business. He said that he missed his old friends and the structure of his job. In that article he wrote: “You can plan everything in life and then the roof caves in on you because you haven’t done enough thinking about who you are and what you should do with the rest of your life.”

Examples of retirement stressors are many. For example, after one retires, one may begin to miss the workplace challenges, and the camaraderie that was shared with co-workers. The relationship between spouses can deteriorate. For example, if a retiree was an administrator at work, he/she might now decide to exercise his/her administrative authority in the home. If a retiree is not engaged in fulfilling activities, the lack of meaning in his/her life can lead to boredom and depression.

Most important, one might feel distressed facing the fleeting nature of time. Most of us go through life rarely considering our mortality, and we conduct our lives as if we have an unlimited amount of time for living. Retirement represents a hard to ignore wakeup call for the retiree that he/she is in the final stage of life.

So what can one do to foster emotional resilience in retirement? Here are six steps that can assist us in this endeavor:

• Recognize that retirement has its own set of challenges. The first step in dealing with any problem is to recognize it and define it. Conduct an honest assessment of your retirement stressors and acknowledge them. Once this is done you can strategize and develop a plan to address them.
• Evaluate your life up to the present, and explore what you would have liked to do, but did not. Consider what prevented you from engaging in these activities. Can you do them now? What has to be accomplished in order to initiate the process?
• Take the time to face the fact that life is transient. Life can be so much richer if we accept this hard cold fact and focus on the things in life that are truly important rather than waste time and energy obsessing over silly concerns. Warren Zevon was interviewed on the Late Show with David Letterman following his having been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Letterman asked Zevon if there was anything he understood now, facing his own mortality, that he didn’t before. Zevon replied: “Just how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.”
• Increase your sense of gratitude by taking the time to acknowledge all of the good things in your life. Research has shown that making an effort to actively appreciate all of our blessings, the minor ones as well as the major ones, is strongly correlated with a sense of optimism, satisfaction, and contentment.
• Resolve to live a life of self-compassion and dispute your self-limiting beliefs, laugh more, and live life in a mindful manner.
• Eat well and exercise as appropriate. A healthy diet and physical exercise are essential for a sense of well-being.

The retirement years can be the best years of your life. Using the above six steps as guideposts will help enrich them with fulfillment and meaning.

Dr. Joel Verstaendig, a “Baby Boomer,” is a psychologist with over 30 years of clinical experience. He is an engaging public speaker whose presentations are informative, educational,and entertaining. He can be reached at: [email protected] or 516-933-6196. Visit his website, at www.drjoelvpsychology.com.