Whether you’re retired, soon to be retired or still a decade or more from finishing up, the concept of ‘not working’ is something many people battle with as they get older.
What I’ve found really interesting over the years of interviewing centenarians and graceful agers is just how many of them pride themselves on ‘keeping busy’ and having something to do and look forward to.
This month’s article is an excerpt from my book, Your Exceptional Life.
Here’s to mastering retirement and making the rest of our life the best of our life.
The Retirement Dilemma
Charles Eugster (1919–2017), a retired dentist who went on to become the fastest man over 95 years of age, described retirement to me as “a financial catastrophe and a health calamity”.
“Retirement is voluntary or involuntary unemployment”, Eugster shared on 100 Not Out. “And unemployment is something that is extremely dangerous for your health. Most people after retirement are sick! The statistics from the US show that 92.2% of people over 65 have one or more chronic diseases. We are destroying old age!”
Eugster’s point is well made. Australia sits eighth on the longevity ladder (with a life expectancy of 83 years), yet plummets down to 21st for quality of life. Australians on average have 70.9 quality years and 11.1 terrible years – over 4,000 days – of poor quality of life.
Eugster wasn’t simply pontificating about ageing gracefully. I interviewed him twice on 100 Not Out, and both times he was determined to champion the importance of working. “I practised dentistry until I was 75. When I was 58 I started a dentist newsletter which I continued until I was 82”, he told me, “and at that particular time my wife had died and I wasn’t feeling particularly good. I thought that I would only live until I was 85 and so I got rid of the publication, which was a huge mistake! After that I was unemployed for eight years, which didn’t do me any good at all. I managed to find employment again at the age of 90 until 92 for a fitness group. Today I am an author trying to write a book.” Eugster went on to release Age Is Just A Number in 2017 before dying a few months later from heart failure, aged 97.
“I want to change the world”, he told me. “I want to make old age into one of the most fabulous, extraordinary, wonderful, beautiful, glorious, stupendous periods of everybody’s life.”
In ‘retirement’, Eugster would go on to win over 100 rowing events, bodybuilding competitions, 36 Masters gold medals, set world records in athletics in distances from 60m to 400m, present an inspiring TEDx talk and become a published author. Not a bad way to spend your time in retirement.
The longevity hack is doing work you love to do
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) became the President of South Africa at age 75, whilst the world’s richest man, Warren Buffett (b. 1930), still drives to work each day. At 93, Dick Van Dyke (b. 1925) performed an inspirational cameo in Mary Poppins Returns, 54 years after starring as Bert in the original Mary Poppins. The film also featured Angela Lansbury (1925-2022), whose career across theatre, television and film spanned a remarkable eight decades.
Working beyond retirement age is not just for the rich and famous though. Nonagenarians like war widow Thelma Zimmerman (b. 1922) continue to live with plenty of purpose and vigour. “I work every Wednesday morning at our church op shop, giving food and clothing to the needy and the homeless”, Zimmerman shared with me on 100 Not Out. Speaking from her home in a South Australian war widows complex, Zimmerman has a full calendar. “I’ve also been helping clean the church for 25 years. We have a committee meeting once a month on a Tuesday, and then I go to church where I’m on the roster for kitchen duty.”
Retirement from professional income-generating work is a logical and desirable step for many people, but retiring from life and no longer contributing to society has disastrous physical, mental and spiritual consequences. Never let age or the word ‘retirement’ trick you into believing your work is done. If The Exceptionals have shown us anything, it’s that our work is never done, our value is never diminished; our roles simply change with the passing chapters of life.
Written by Marcus Pearce and published by PSK Private Wealth
