Day of Reckoning

How One Man Found the Answer to the 
Big Question: Is it Time to Retire?

By John A. Prestbo, Wall Street Journal

October 2, 2006

Last month, I celebrated my 65th birthday. Time to retire. Or is it?

I've been ruminating about retirement off and on for several years, but since my father died at age 92 in February 2005 the topic hasn't strayed far from my conscious thought. There's nothing like being catapulted up to patriarch to stir musings of endgame scenarios.

A growing number of software programs let you tap your inner Mozart -- or Jimi Hendrix. Plus, a Johns Hopkins physician is giving 'geriatric surgery' a big push.

Let me explain where I'm coming from. All my life, "retirement" and "age 65" have been interchangeable. I don't know exactly why this attitude existed -- my grandparents' generation didn't have any such expectations. But I suspect it was the advent of Social Security and its rules for full benefits at 65 that created the mind-set passed along to me. I clearly remember a grade-school arithmetic problem in which I was to determine what year I would turn 65 and "be able to retire." And I remember thinking that 2006 seemed an eternity away.

Of course, since then the rules have changed, and now I must be 65 and eight months to qualify for full Social Security benefits. If I wait until age 70, I'll get even bigger checks. My pro-retirement friends say, "Take the money now and enjoy life. Do your traveling while you're healthy. Let somebody younger deal with the stress at the office."

It's tempting, especially on cold, rainy Mondays. But deep down I know that retirement isn't just about money, or traveling, or any other appealing diversions. It is far more profound and personal than that -- like the difference, at a much younger age, between regarding marriage as a desirable goal and realizing you are head over heels in love with a specific person. As the penultimate step in life's journey, retirement deserves careful consideration.

So, as the weeks and months passed, I organized my thinking according to a checklist of pertinent factors, from health to wealth. While I didn't actually make lists of "pro" and "con" points, my pondering did poke at both sides of the question.

Here is a summary of the process:

HEALTH

My health is pretty good, I think. My doctor wants me to lose 20 pounds, and my wife says I drink too much. I take medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol control, and have been known to suffer bouts of gout and lower back pain. On the positive side, I have a personal trainer at the company gym, where I try to work out two or three times a week when I'm in town. And my wife and I bought bicycles for riding around the neighborhood and along the tow path of a nearby 19th-century canal.

All of this adds up to neutral in terms of whether to retire, in my opinion. On one hand, retiring soon would capture for my personal use the presumably healthiest years I have left. On the other hand, I have no known condition -- a previous heart attack or stroke, for example -- to suggest that debilitating health problems lie ahead. Equally important, my wife's health is good, and she also is free of ominous symptoms.

Of course, health conditions can change quickly. If mine or my wife's get iffy, I will have to rethink the matter. But I'm comforted by the longevity genes passed to me by my father and maternal grandfather, who died at 91. Clearly, people in different circumstances would reach different conclusions about health's influence on the retirement decision. See what I mean about this choice being very personal?

JOB

I like my job. Sure, some days are better than others, but on the whole I feel productive and fulfilled. In this respect, I swim in the mainstream. According to a Gallup Poll in August 2005, 87% of working adults in the U.S. private sector "love" or "like" their jobs. A not-insignificant 12% dislike or hate their jobs. And if I were among the latter, I wouldn't be going through this drill.

We have heard the quip that nobody on his deathbed regrets not spending more time working. But for me and many others, the work we do is a big part of who we are and how much we enjoy life. Another Gallup Poll, in June of this year, found that 33% of working adults are very or somewhat concerned about "losing a sense of purpose" in their lives after they retire.

To tell the truth, I worry a little about drifting aimlessly in retirement. It isn't that I couldn't find something interesting and worthwhile to do. But will I have the fortitude to get out there and look? My workaday life has a structure of deadlines and obligations that propel me through the workweek, even as I occasionally chafe at too many consecutive days of sameness. Take that structure away, however, and I fear my tendency to dawdle over unimportant tasks and sink into unmotivated ennui. A fulfilling retirement, I have come to appreciate, requires a mental and attitudinal discipline. Some days I'm confident that I have it, and other days I worry that I don't.

Meanwhile, according to Gallup's annual survey of workers' retirement plans, the portion of nonretired adults who say they intend to retire after age 65 is now the highest it has ever been -- 31% in the most recent survey, up from 12% in 1995. My wife, a psychotherapist, plans to close her office next year when she qualifies for full Social Security benefits but continue to see some clients in our home.

PLANS

My wife and I have lots of things we want to do in the years ahead. Travel is the most ambitious, and the most expensive, item on the agenda. While we look forward to not being hemmed in by vacation-day quotas, we have come to realize that the experience of traveling is richest when bracketed by periods of homebound routine. As for hobbies, I'm eager to set up my easel and paint regularly again.

We both have arm-long lists of projects facing us, such as cleaning out the attic, sorting through several hundred pounds of stuff we collected when closing our respective parents' houses, and editing 40 years of home movies and videos. Each of these tasks has a big emotional component of memories, so we intend to pick away at them resolutely but temperately.

In short, we don't have any grand plans that require long time commitments. Instead, we envision a diverse future of chores, get-togethers with family and friends, and occasional expeditions out into the world. There's probably room for work in that mix. I could see myself continuing full time for two years or so, then maybe cutting back to part time. That vision corresponds to the Gallup Poll in June that found 63% of nonretired people plan to work in retirement, mostly (51%) part time.

The only thing my wife and I don't agree on is where we'll retire. She likes our present home, where she has created a beautiful garden of flowers and shrubs, and she likes the familiarity -- and the friends -- of the central New Jersey area where we have lived since 1982. My preference is for somewhere warmer, maybe in the Carolinas, and in a home requiring less climbing of stairs. The issue doesn't need resolving as long as I keep working and the attic still needs cleaning, but we'll have to face it one day.

WEALTH

Thanks to a good retirement plan at work, and the bull market of the 1980s and '90s, we have enough money put away to retire this minute.

We know how fortunate we are. A Gallup Poll this year found 60% of Americans are very or moderately worried about funding retirement. "The only issue that comes close to this is being able to pay for medical care in the event of a serious accident or illness," the Gallup analyst wrote. Just 50% of working adults say they expect to have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, down from 59% five years earlier, according to Gallup.

A separate poll, also conducted this spring, found that most (60%) of those expressing little or no concern about their retirement finances say they likely will work in retirement. A commanding 71% of nonretired adults with postgraduate education say they likely will work in retirement, compared with 64% for those with some college education and 60% for those with no college.

What this suggests, a Gallup analyst wrote, is that "a major cultural realignment is under way concerning the way Americans view retirement."

Include me in that trend, as my checklist thinking failed to persuade me that I should retire now or soon. While my last day of full-time gainful employment will come, inevitably, I feel no need to race out and meet it.

But if work stops being fun more than half the time, I'm out of here.