For too many Kenyans, retirement is imagined as the beginning of the end – a quiet season of slowing down, stepping aside and learning to live with the realities of ageing. But what if we have retirement completely wrong? What if, instead of preparing ourselves to withdraw from life we viewed retirement as an opportunity to rediscover how to live and reinvent ourselves during this chapter of our lives?
For decades, many of us live according to the demands of others and society. We build careers, raise families, pay school fees, support relatives, sit in traffic going to work, meet deadlines and carry responsibilities that leave very little room for ourselves. Our diaries are full; our phones are constantly ringing and there is always somewhere we are expected to be. We become so busy making a living that, somewhere along the way, many of us forget how to simply live.
Upon retirement, the alarm clock no longer dictates the morning or our days. There are no Monday meetings, no deadlines, no performance appraisals and no office demanding your attention. For some people, this freedom is exhilarating. For others, it is terrifying as they try to figure out what to do with their new found freedom. After years of a demanding professional life, many discover that retirement is not simply about leaving a job. It is about learning how to construct a life when work is no longer doing it for you.
Unfortunately, some people respond by gradually shrinking their lives. They leave the house less, stop meeting people, stop dressing up because there is “nowhere to go”, and stop learning new things because they believe technology and new experiences belong to younger people. Invitations become fewer, friendships fade and their world slowly becomes smaller.
For some, without even realising it, retirement can become a rehearsal for old age rather than an exciting new stage of life. This is the narrative we need to challenge. Today, many people may have twenty or even thirty years of life after leaving formal employment. This, is far too much life to spend simply waiting, watching and withdrawing.
Living your best life in retirement is not about chasing youth or denying ageing. Neither is it necessarily about expensive holidays or living a fancy life in retirement. Many retirees simply cannot afford this version of retirement. It is something much more fundamental: continuing to value your life enough to remain engaged with it. It means taking care of your health because your body still matters; dressing well because how you feel about yourself still matters; maintaining friendships because companionship still matters; learning something new because curiosity still matters; and finding purpose because your contribution still matters. These are not acts of vanity or attempts to escape ageing. They are acts of self-respect. One of the most dangerous things we can do after retirement is “abandon” ourselves.
However, the risk is particularly real because work previously provided so much of what kept us connected. You did not have to make an appointment to interact with people; colleagues were around you every day. Meetings created structure, deadlines created urgency and simply going to work got you out of the house. Retirement removes much of that automatically. As a result, it is important that as retirees that we intentionally plan for our lives.
For some, this may mean calling the friend you have been meaning to call, joining a walking group or attending that chama meeting. The activity we choose to engage in itself matters less than the decision behind it – I am still participating in my own life.
And sometimes it is the smallest things that make the biggest difference. Wake up with something to do. Get dressed even when nobody is expecting you anywhere. Leave the house regularly. Exercise. Make plans. Have something to look forward to next week. Learn how that app works instead of immediately handing your phone to your child or grandchild. Meet somebody new. Rediscover something you enjoyed before work and family responsibilities took over your life. Retirement gives us an opportunity to recover parts of ourselves that may have been buried under decades of responsibility. These things may appear small, but together they create something important: a life that still feels alive.
Of course, we must not romanticise retirement. Growing older brings real challenges. Family and personal responsibilities do not magically disappear when the retirement letter arrives. Living your best life in retirement does not mean ignoring existing realities or pretending that positive thinking can somehow make them disappear. It means refusing to allow them to become the entire definition of your life. Even within limitations, there can still be friendship, laughter, curiosity, learning, contribution and joy – especially in retirement.
Perhaps this is where we need the biggest shift in our thinking about retirement – preparing for how to actually live in retirement. In addition, retirement should not be viewed simply as withdrawal from employment. It should be approached as a transition into a different way of living – perhaps even a more intentional one.
For the first time in decades, you may finally have an opportunity to ask yourself what you want the rest of your life to look like. You may not have the same energy you had at thirty. Your knees may occasionally remind you of your age. Your finances may impose limits and life may certainly continue to bring its challenges. But you are still here. And while you are here, there are still so many things to do with your life. There are things to learn, laughter to enjoy, experiences to discover and something of yourself to give.
Retirement is not permission to “disappear”. It is an invitation to live differently -with more intention, more curiosity and perhaps, finally, on your own terms. After spending so much of our lives making a living, perhaps retirement is our opportunity to learn the art of simply living – and to squeeze every last drop of juice out of life.
Dr. Kaendi Munguti is a certified retirement and transition coach and is the Founder and CEO of Reinvent RetireMINT