Nothing focusses the mind like having the end in sight, but beware of the cost
Life expectancy
Turning sixty-five has been a kick in the teeth in a way I never would have expected.
I’d never looked at the Statistics Canada life expectancy table but my curiosity finally got the better of me.
It turns out that as a male living in New Brunswick Canada at 65, I have only 18.51 years left. Talk about a roundhouse to the chops.
This means that I should live to the age of 83.51. I appreciate that StatsCan can calculate my remaining days with such precision, as I now know that I should be cashing it in on August 3, 2042, sometime late afternoon. Give or take. I’d best eat a light lunch.
And focus like hell on what I want to accomplish in the meantime. Or so I believe.
Signpost ages: The pre-retirement years
There are signpost ages in our lives: for women, I’ve heard that it’s 30 while for men, it’s 40. If you’re a man, 40 is when you realize that at least half of your life is over and you wonder whether you’ve accomplished enough – whatever that means.
40 was when I split up with my previous wife and later met my current (and final) wife, so it was a challenging year for me, regardless. I was too busy dangling from an emotional yo-yo to worry about whether I’d accomplished enough.
Then, I looked at my bank account and found out very quickly all I needed to know about that “accomplishment” thing – seemed like I was starting over in more ways than one.
“Freedom 55”?
55 has always been the Holy Grail when it came to early retirement (remember “Freedom 55”?), but that was a non-starter financially for me, and I’m not sure I would have stopped working then even if I could have.
At that age, I was just coming into my own professionally. I’d been self-employed for a long time in a couple of different careers, but I now owned my real estate appraisal business outright and held a senior professional designation.
On the volunteer side, I was becoming established as a junior high basketball coach and was mid-stream as a member of the University of Alberta Senate, both of which I enjoyed immensely and which gave me a sense of purpose and fulfillment at that stage.
I’d also received a small inheritance at that time (I’ll spare you the details here, but you can glean some of them from this piece), so there was a bit more financial security than there had been until then. It was a heady time – the start of some of the best years of my life, in fact.
But time marches on.
Turning sixty
And then I turned 60. I joked with people, “It’s the last quarter now, and I can only hope that the game goes into overtime.”
Took early Canada Pension, which is one of those things you can do only if you’re 60 or older. Proof positive that I was on the way into my seventh decade.
Moved from Alberta to New Brunswick that year, too, so I was beginning a new chapter on a couple of different fronts.
The idea of retirement at sixty-five
But turning the signpost age of 65 has been something different entirely. You don’t really understand the different stages of your life until you’ve lived them.
65 is considered retirement age in Canada. You can draw a reduced Canada Pension (CPP) as early as 60 but your “full” entitlement is not available until 65. And you have to wait until at least 65 to draw on Old Age Security (OAS).
Receiving that first OAS payment made this new stage of life very real for me.
As did looking in the mirror, of course. The visible aging process really seems to speed up in our 60s, in case you didn’t notice.
But there’s more to it than that, as we need to have a very clear understanding of who we are at 65. Those who don’t discern purpose at that point can suffer on many levels.
In my case, I see my remaining 18.51 years as a beginning, a chance to do what I’m doing here, which is putting words to paper (well, not exactly paper) and leaving a tangible trail of lessons learned and life lived for those who might care to read about such things.
Perhaps it’s different for people who’ve had a single, flourishing career, retiring at 65. It’s a culmination of sorts for them. But, in my case, I had several different careers, none of which ever truly fulfilled or defined me, at least not in the way my volunteer gigs did.
A new beginning
So I don’t feel like 65 is a culmination for me. Rather, I feel like it’s a time to get started on addressing unfinished business.
And in doing this bit of scribbling, I’m doing just that. I see it as my last chance to produce something fulfilling and lasting, perhaps even something that matters to others in some small way.
Now, this sense of purpose and identity in retirement is mostly great, but it can be a double-edged sword.
Mortality focusses the mind for most of us throughout our lives, whether we realize it or not. We would act very differently if we knew we weren’t going to die. But, if post-sixty-five is the chosen time to shine, the focus has to be laser-sharp.
There’s no more room for error or second chances and it certainly feels like there’s no time to waste.
"Will it be the same for me?"
I was really gob-smacked when an acquaintance of ours in Alberta passed away a while back at age sixty-six. She was healthy and vibrant – my wife and I would never have expected that and we never did find out what the cause may have been.
The Camrose (AB) Morning News obits (which we still read precisely for the obituaries – at a certain age, that’s just what you do, particularly relative to a place where you spent many decades) are sometimes rife with people who have died in their sixties.
It would be good to know what the cause was for each of them so I can stop asking myself, “Will it be the same for me?”
I know, I know. Focus on the now and let the chips fall where they may. That is indeed the best advice, but it’s sometimes easier to say than to do.
Will I finish the things I truly want to finish? Or get to see our daughter (who lives in Ireland) often enough? Will we have enough money? Can I just stop having so much banal crap to do some days that drags me away from what I truly want to be doing?
Sometimes, I don’t even realize how much those thoughts underpin my thinking, but I’ve certainly come to see it in the resentment and impatience I sometimes direct toward all the inevitable, normal little impediments in daily life that keep diverting my focus.
The joy of purpose vs. the drudgery of obligation
As I said, it’s a double-edged sword: it’s a joy to have discerned purpose at this stage in my life, especially since many retirees do not, but purpose can sometimes be a relentless taskmaster. The joy of purpose can easily become the drudgery of obligation.
I am going to have to think very carefully how to discover the balance that’ll allow me to accomplish what I still want to accomplish while enjoying the ride along the way in the remaining years of my “last quarter.”
Not sure how many of those 18.51 years I actually have left, so I’d better get to work.
After all, I’m 65 now.
A thoughtful recollection. I was the advertising copywriter who coined Get Rich Slowly. My best friend, also a financial planner, gave me three copies of the Wealthy Barber – which I ignored.
Today’s idea is about life and financial training for young men. I just watched Prof. Scott Galloway on Morning Joe. ( 4.23.23) He makes several salient points, many of which are applicable to Canada in its current state. Reading your bio, someone like you is well-equipped to be part of the solution. I found Galloway’s comment that the education system seems to have swapped computer programming for civics especially resonant. More later. Regards – from a reader 8 years your senior.
I do so appreciate your kind thoughts and any perspective you have to offer. Yes, civics a disappeared option, it seems – less and less that binds us in the absence of that. We will be chatting much more, I suspect. Thank you again.
30, 40, even 50 were easy for me! I will be 59 this year and 60 scares the heck out of me. I feel I still have so much to do, all family focused. I want to see my grandchildren grow up, start careers, get married, have families of their own, and most of all have happy lives. Reality starts to set in when those around you start to pass away. We must live life to the fullest while we can.
Boy, you’ve got that so right, Lana. Turning 60 was odd for me as well, as I likened it to entering the “4th quarter”, with the hope that the game could go into overtime! My thinking really started changing about then. I’d hate to go tomorrow, but I’d be OK with it in that all the relationships that matter in my life are in a good place (either settled or buried!), which is all that I think truly matters.