Some mornings the alarm goes off and I catch myself wishing I were already retired. I will admit that freely. At my age it is practically a reflex. The alarm sounds, the calendar loads, and somewhere in the back of the mind a little voice says, one day I will not have to do any of this.
Notice what that voice is doing, though. It is describing an ending. No more alarms, no more meetings, no more commute. When we daydream about retirement from the middle of a working life, we almost always picture what we will stop doing. We almost never picture what we will start.
Here is where my job gives me a strange and wonderful seat. The families American Retirement Advisors serves are retired or retiring right now, which means I spend every week watching people live on the other side of the wish I have at 6:30 in the morning. And what I observe over there is eye opening.
The two best words in our office
There is a moment that happens in our advisors' conversations that I never get tired of hearing about. The plan comes together, the numbers get checked twice, and someone who has worked for forty years says two words out loud, almost like they are testing them: "I can retire."
It is a beautiful moment. It is also not the end of the conversation. Because the question that follows it is harder than any of the math, and it catches more people off guard than any tax rule ever has: retire to what?
The people who have a ready answer light up. The people who do not go quiet. Not because anything is wrong, but because they have spent thirty years planning how to leave work and about thirty minutes planning what they are walking toward.
Retirement is not a finish line
We talk about retirement the way we talk about a race. Cross the line, break the tape, done. But finish lines end things, and retirement does not end anything except a commute. Step away in your early sixties and you may have a quarter of a century in front of you. Nobody "finishes" for twenty five years.
Retirement is not a finish line. It is a starting line, and it starts the longest unscheduled stretch of your life. Every hour that used to be spoken for is suddenly yours to assign. From what I observe, that freedom is either the best thing that ever happened to someone or the most disorienting, and the difference is almost never money.
The difference is whether they know what makes them them.
What I see on the other side
Because here is the eye opening part: the possibilities over there are genuinely infinite, and I get to watch people claim them. The garage that becomes a woodshop. The volunteer shift that turns into running the whole food drive. The grandmother who structures her week around the grandkids' schedules and would not trade it for any title she ever held. The retired engineer who keeps consulting a few hours a week, not for the check, but because solving problems is simply what he is. The tennis players, the gardeners, the golfers picking the game back up after twenty years.
None of those people retired from something. They retired to something. And in nearly every case, the thing they retired to was already visible in their working years, waiting for more room.
How do you find purpose in retirement?
You find it before you get there. The best time to figure out your purpose in retirement is while you are still working: pay attention to the parts of your life you would keep doing with or without a paycheck, and build your retirement around those. The job title goes away. The parts of you that were never about the job do not.
So here is the question I would hand to anyone who is still working and dreaming, myself included: what would you keep doing without the paycheck? Not which job would you quit. What part of your week would survive the last direct deposit? Teaching someone something. Fixing what is broken. Growing things. Feeding people. Organizing the chaos. Whatever it is, that is not your work. That is you. Retirement just hands it more hours.
If you read yesterday's story about my in-laws in Maine, this is the same idea wearing work clothes. The Tuesday question asked what you would do with one unscheduled day. The paycheck question is the Tuesday question for the rest of your life.
The two halves of a great retirement
Our advisors have a phrase I have heard many times: we need to make sure you can retire and stay retired, that you can live comfortably and not run out of money before you run out of time. That is the money half, and it is their whole profession. Get the income plan settled and the fear goes quiet.
But the money half only buys the ticket. The purpose half decides whether you enjoy the trip. And that half is not something an advisor can hand you. It is something you notice about yourself, in the ordinary weeks, while the paycheck is still showing up. The luckiest retirees I hear about did that noticing early. By the time someone said "you can retire," they already knew what they were retiring to.
So go ahead and wish for it on the hard mornings. I do. Just spend a little of that wishing on the right question. Not "when can I stop?" but "what will I keep?"
And when you want to know whether the money half is ready to fund the answer, that is a conversation the team at American Retirement Advisors would love to have. Call (602) 281-3898. Bring your answer to the paycheck question. It makes for a much better meeting.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice. Tax laws change frequently, and individual circumstances vary. American Retirement Advisors does not provide tax or legal services. Before making any tax-related decisions, consult a qualified CPA, tax attorney, or financial planner who can evaluate your specific situation.