Lost in Transition

Life after employment requires adjustments.

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash

I consider my retirement a blessing, an event that opened up a new life that I am very satisfied with. But I would be lying if I said it was smooth and easy. It was not. I stumbled around, lost and confused, for several years until I settled into what I now consider my nearly perfect existence.

Apparently my experience is not unique. I have had conversations with several recently retired friends who have also been surprised to find themselves wracked with doubt and occasional despair over the question, “Now what?” With a job, however boring or unpleasant, that question never arises. You know where you have to go, and you know what you have to do.  But once liberated from that web of certainties, you have the “freedom” to figure out your own answer, often with little support or guidance.

Many Transitions to Cross

In other words, retirement is a transition. Transitions aren’t always easy. The odds are good that each of us will experience a number of transitions in our later years.

By a happy coincidence, I have begun reading Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, by William Bridges. First published in 1980, it is considered a classic and ranks among the 50 all-time best books in self-help and personal development. The book is shedding considerable light on what many of us experience as we confront major changes.  

Bridges declares that all transitions are divided into three parts: an ending, a neutral zone, and a new beginning. None of the three are particularly easy.  With ending, the hard part is letting go of what you had, outwardly and inwardly. The job may have come with some authority, a title, respect, and other perks. How does it feel to let go of them all?  In a conversation this week, a man told me his father, an academic, suffered a major depression when he left his faculty position, but immediately perked up when a health care aide insisted on addressing him as “professor.”

The second stage, which Bridges calls the neutral zone, is often experienced as a distressing emptiness. In addition to the “now what” question, there are also questions like, “Who am I really?” and “What do I really want to do?”  This is tough stuff, even for those who are prone to introspection. (And for those who aren’t, the retirement coaching profession seems to be a thing.) As Bridges observes, it’s frightening to have no idea what the future might look like.  “Sometimes the distresses involve new beginnings that require unforeseen endings,” he writes. “Sometimes they involve endings with no new beginning in sight.”

Bridges likens the stages of transition to the seasons: In fall the leaves fall off the trees (ending), followed by winter, when the undergrowth dies back and new notions form. Finally in spring, new life reemerges.

Perhaps there is some comfort in recognizing that you may need a winter of discontent to clear the ground for new growth.  In my own case, that period of fumbling around in neither-here-nor-there led me to an exciting and delightful post-career career that I never could have imagined just a year ago.

Another Approach

Andy Robin has another approach to this transition worthy of your consideration. Instead of looking for That One Thing (remember Curley in City Slickers?), he suggests assembling a sampler plate of bite-sized activities. He calls this a tapas (like the Spanish dinner of small dishes). In his book Tapas Life: A Rich and Rewarding Life After Your Long Career, he applauds the period after your long career  as an ideal time to experiment, take chances, fail a little, until you strike a balance of activities that feel right. One of the activities, he says, should be something that you find meaningful and in line with your own sense of purpose.  

You can hear my full interview with Andy Robin on The EndGame podcast.

One final observation: Bridges notes that in the transition to “life’s afternoon,” people tend to have less interest in the kinds of achievements that animated life’s first half. In its place, people have greater interest in psychological and spiritual concerns. He adds, “The truth is that, although ours is a youth-oriented culture, many of us do not come into our own until our lives are half or three-quarters over.”

What an encouraging thought!