Ikigai, the meaningful retirement fix
Financial planning guru Sam Dogen knows why people fail retirement. As Boomer and Gen X women rewrite male retirement, Ikigai is a great clue.
For Boomer and Gen X women coming off a business career into retirement, the guidebook is just now being written. As usual, throughout our professional lives, the only model we had was predominantly male-authored. Women may or may not be genetically-driven to contribute to something greater than solely an economic ROI, but IMO that gene is at least stronger in us. There’s a reason the top two female entrepreneur businesses are services and healthcare. And we’re just fine competing in business under anyone’s rules. (Reference Ginger Rogers doing the same thing as Fred, but backwards in high heels.) And then we hit retirement…and yet again, no real guidebook on how we channel that commitment, energy and passion in a new life phase.
I recently had dinner with a dear friend in Seattle. He’s nearing retirement, and we talked about my “Is mahjongg really all there is?” reaction to it. He led me to ikigai, for which I will forever be grateful. If you’ve spent a life motivated by contributing to others—whether at home, work, or in the community—you may be as excited about the concept of ikigai as I am. And it may be particularly clarifying if you moved to a new area during retirement, as we did.
In Ikigai is why you shouldn’t be afraid of retirement, Sam Dogen, (AKA The Financial Samurai) posted a terrific, easy read on putting the meaning back into retirement and bringing joy (and possibly more) to this natural life phase. See Sam’s website here.
Programmed by our parents who got a watch and a kick out the door at age 65, we can default to thinking there’s some kind of magical on/off switch between working and retirement. The standard chant where I live is plans to “retire, travel, and spend more time with the kids.”
The problems with that are at least two. The kids actually have lives of their own and are pretty busy. If fact, Boomers and older Gen Xers classically smolder at Millennials not working 12/24—so why would our kids be able to take all kinds of time off to visit and play? And… well…even for those yearning for travel, it can get boring after two to three years, not to mention evermore complicated with aging.
In Japan, the origin of the concept of ikigia, there is no direct translation for the word "retirement." People often continue to engage in meaningful activities throughout their lives, with ikigai representing their reason for getting up in the morning and living a purposeful life.
Dogen does a great job laying out the concept of ikigai in retirement, with very simple steps to identify what you love and do well, and what contributes to others. This piece is also enlightening on the contrast between Boomer industrial-age thinking (reporting to work every day and working 12 hours, often for the fun of it), versus the way younger gens think about work-life balance and the freedom of passive income in an information age.