Isn’t it quite amusing that we spend our whole work lives watching the clock: we get up with the alarm, take our meal times at certain hours, finish work as the clock hands signals a certain hour, scan the time on our wristwatch (for those of us still wearing this) or our mobile phones as we try to fulfil deadlines at work. When we retire and time has supposedly no meaning anymore, we are awarded a clock or a wristwatch for our service. I trust that this observation is an apt introduction to my real topic at hand which is on retirement.
I was reading an online article last week from the South African POST publication about three doctors who were still actively working although they were way past their retirement age: paediatrician, Dr TS Pillay who at 80 years old is now treating grandchildren of his original, older patients, Dr PN Govender, a 90 year old who still drives to work daily and dermatologist, Dr PN Naidu who at almost 80 years old, still balances his work at the clinic and lecturing at the university. There are countless other white-haired citizens who continue to work on well into their seventies and eighties.
Many of my generation peers are close to retirement age which for women is set at 60 and for men at 65. I always regarded this age set as old and never thought I would be tethering on the threshold of this rites of passage so quickly. Where have all the bloody years gone?
With improved living conditions and better medical care, people are living much longer. Japan is the number 1 country in the world where humans live the longest. The Japanese woman’s life expectancy is at 90 years and the Japanese man’s is at 80.4 years. This country is often referred to as the “land of the immortals” where there are hundreds of centenarians - that is, people over a 100 years of age. Many point to their healthy diet of abundant vegetables, heart-healthy fish and rice eaten in small portions.
A famous proponent of longevity, the Japanese Doctor Shigeaki Hinohara worked an 18-hour day right up to his death at 105 years old as a physician, lecturer, author and mentor. This inspirational centenarian advocated that the retirement age should be pushed much higher to the late seventies or mid-eighties. He argued that the retirement age for men was set at 65 when life expectancy was on average just 8 years after retirement. Now that we are living well into our eighties and nineties, we should retire much, much later.
Incidentally, the same doctor conducted a study on longevity where he tried to pinpoint the single factor that increases life expectancy. Surprisingly, it was not intelligence, genetics, social standing, exercise, diet, mental health, socio-economic status, life partner or occupation that ensured a long life. The one variable that was common in all people that lived to be over a 100 years old was that of service. In other words, they continued to work pretty close right until they passed on. Perhaps, like i mentioned in an earlier piece, why it is so important to love what you do as work.
I read somewhere that there are three stages of work life: the first one is when we first launch into our chosen profession and put in long hours to earn money to pay for the car, our fashionable dress sense, travel and our entertainment. We then migrate to the more responsible second stage where it is about funding the mortgage and taking care of family responsibilities. The last stage is in retirement where we can continue to provide our professional service or give off our time in voluntary work.
When you ask the question why do people retire, the general answer is “to take it easy” or to “ have a well-earned rest”. However, as we can see from the doctors, the key to long life is to keep on working; if not in your
chosen profession but in still providing service to mankind.
While on the subject of retirement, did you know Otto von Bismarck, “The Iron Chancellor” from Germany ( also from our history lesson at school) was the one who in 1880 introduced the age 65 be the time of retirement? He shrewdly picked this age because no one was supposed to live past that age. In this way they saved on the social security pension!
So, whether you are already retired or on the brink of retirement, here’s hoping that you are involved in a profession that you love so much that you can continue way past the bell toll of 65 or at the least have a cause that you can dedicate to or champion for to make the world a better place than when you entered.
So, like some unknown author once said, and to which I concur, Retirement is not the end of the road. It is the beginning of the open highway.
Have a fabulous week, Folks, and be on time!
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