Reframing Retirement

To Retiring To Something Instead of From Something

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through my phone when I came across an article about retirement. At first, I almost skipped it. I read and listen to a ton of retirement content because it’s part of my job. After twenty-five years as a financial planner, there isn’t much that surprises me anymore.

But this article did.

The researchers had followed people through retirement and found a remarkably consistent pattern. The first year or so often feels wonderful. No alarm clock. No Zoom meetings. No Sunday evening anxiety. The freedom to spend a Tuesday morning however you choose.

But somewhere around the second year, things begin to shift. Researchers have started referring to it as retirement loneliness.

One sentence from the article has stayed with me ever since:

“Free time is not a substitute for being needed.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about it, partly because it reminded me of conversations I’ve had with clients, but mostly because it made me think about my own retirement. It’s one of those topics that, if I dwell on it for too long, leaves me with a pit in my stomach.

It’s not about money. I know how to prepare financially for retirement. That’s what I do for a living.

It’s about leaving behind the entire ecosystem I’ve built around my career.

The bedrock of that ecosystem is the satisfaction that comes from being good at what I do. After twenty-five years, there is a quiet confidence that comes from helping hundreds of clients through some of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. I don’t have to wonder if I can help someone anymore. I know I can.

And I wonder…

Photo by Szilvia Basso on Unsplash

Where does that feeling of competence go when you retire?
What replaces the sense of purpose that comes from being needed?

I don’t know the answer to those questions yet, but I find myself asking them more and more.

Then there’s the community I’ve built.

Over the years I’ve spoken at conferences, served on committees, mentored younger advisors, and built friendships with people across the profession. I have peer groups that meet regularly. I text advisor friends every week. We share ideas, frustrations, successes, and the occasional reminder that none of us has this job completely figured out.

Then there’s the challenge and intellectual stimulation.

My clients challenge me constantly. One day I’m helping someone think through a difficult retirement decision. The next I’m learning about changes to the tax code, trying to understand a new AI tool, reading investment research, or listening to an economist explain something I’d never thought about before.

I learn something new every single day, and I enjoy that.

All of those things together make up my ecosystem. And when I retire, I know that ecosystem will change. That thought terrifies me.

One of the most interesting ideas in the article was that retirement loneliness doesn’t necessarily come from losing our closest friends. In fact, with more free time, we often have more opportunities to spend time with them.

Instead, it often comes from losing what psychologists call our weak ties—the people we interact with regularly but who aren’t part of our inner circle. The person you always talk to before a meeting. The familiar faces at conferences. The colleagues who send you an interesting article. The people who quietly become part of the rhythm of your life. These relationships matter to me.

Fortunately, the article didn’t leave me feeling discouraged. It left me feeling hopeful.

The people who seem to navigate retirement most successfully are the ones who intentionally begin building a new sense of purpose and community. They teach. They mentor. They join boards. They become involved in organizations they care about. They cultivate hobbies that connect them with other people. And they don’t wait years to start.

They don’t just retire from something.
They retire to something.

I haven’t figured out exactly what that will look like for me. Right now, retirement still gives me that pit-in-my-stomach feeling. But I’m starting to reframe the way I think about retiring, and I plan to keep doing that—long before I actually stop working.