Ageing & Growing Old

[maximus otter]

I think we all know of people who only have a worklife and once it's gone, they believe they have no purpose nor interest in life. Some even die shortly after they've taken retirement.

I was able to retire at 49, and l’ve had the time of my life since then.

During my police career, however, the grim stats were that the average copper retired at 51 and was dead at 58. I suppose that this resulted from decades of shift work, stress and crappy food snatched at all hours of the day; also the ennui of which Sherlock Holmes regularly complained to Dr. Watson when the flow of new cases dried up.

I’m delighted to be beavering away at shifting the right-hand end of the bell curve farther in the correct direction!

maximus otter

 

[escargot]

Very wise! I used to know a fellow who would fit into the above category. He worked on the custodial staff at a local hospital for many years and he retired at age 65. His wife had died some years earlier and he had no children. Sadly, he died less than a year after his retirement. To my knowledge, he had no serious medical issues when he retired. His job may not have been very exciting but it gave him a reason to get out of bed in the morning. In the absence of any motivation, a person's life can indeed fall apart quickly.

Also, having something outside work is important; not only family but interests like pets or hobbies and sports, especially active ones.

Can remember the late Eric Morecambe talking about taking up birdwatching when exercising outdoors on his doctor's advice, after his first heart attack. Morecambe had been a ferociously heavy smoker and died of heart failure at 58.

Here's a (safe) page about it, an article from Radio Times in 1974 on the Morecambe & Wise website:
All About The Birds and The Bees..

Over to Eric. “I started when I had the heart attack. I had to go out walking a lot and I got bored. So I bought a book.”

“You don’t just go and wander about. You give yourself, say a week to find a particular bird. I saw a bird on the golf course. I thought it was a parrot. I thought ‘hello, it’s escaped.’

“I rang up Gordon and described it and it was a green woodpecker. Marvelous, marvellous feeling.”

Eric's commemorative statue in his home town shows him with binoculars. We should learn from him.
I was already about two years older than poor Eric when this was taken!

 

[Xanatic*]

When does "old dog" brain develop? Those people are so annoying. Any tech less than 50 years old is incomprehensible.

 

[PeteS]

Very wise! I used to know a fellow who would fit into the above category. He worked on the custodial staff at a local hospital for many years and he retired at age 65. His wife had died some years earlier and he had no children. Sadly, he died less than a year after his retirement. To my knowledge, he had no serious medical issues when he retired. His job may not have been very exciting but it gave him a reason to get out of bed in the morning. In the absence of any motivation, a person's life can indeed fall apart quickly.

My father worked for the same bank for 44 years and retired at 60, saying that he had seen colleagues work until normal retirement at 65 and die soon after, and I've seen this happen myself. What exactly are the reasons for this though? Can't just be because you have "no reason" to get up in the morning. What physically is going on, apart from the effects of hard physical labour and illnesses from industry which some have had to endure?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... What exactly are the reasons for this though? Can't just be because you have "no reason" to get up in the morning. What physically is going on, apart from the effects of hard physical labour and illnesses from industry which some have had to endure?

There are two factors which I've observed to be in play and which I believe play the largest role in many (but not all) cases - depression and stress.

Don't underestimate the impact of an abrupt life shift in fostering depression, and don't underestimate the way depression's effects are magnified with advanced age. I've known lifelong workers to fall into a deep dark funk within months after full retirement. This can have all sorts of direct and indirect effects on health. In the most extreme cases I've seen folks essentially wither away. Depression is a reaction / response to one's perceived situation, which in turn points to the more probable causative factor ...

It's common to view retirement as an event that frees one from everyday stresses, but for folks who've invested their whole adult lives in doing the same thing retirement can be a huge and insurmountable stressor. This can result from a wide array of issues, such as:

- losing a longstanding sense of self-worth and identity which had developed around one's job / career
- loss of structure (e.g., routine) in one's everyday activities
- suddenly having to be immersed in spousal / family matters 24/7
- loss of the way(s) one measured one's personal worth (to oneself and / or to others)
- sudden loss of one's prior level of income / affluence
- loss of workplace social connections and networks that were more important than one realized
- the shock of seeing oneself as a 'retiree' / 'oldster' that had long been a category of 'them' (other people; not me)
- an inability to adapt to circumstances after not having to 'maneuver' for 40 or more years
- the burden of connections, obligations and / or entanglements that persist as sources of pressure

... and more.

There's one thing that strongly affects the intensity and impact of these factors - the less one has foreseen and made allowances for the last phase of life the greater the shock when the typically abrupt transition into that phase occurs. It's all too common to never consider and plan for retirement until you find yourself staring it in the face. Some folks are ill-prepared and ill-equipped to make that transition, and it devastates them.

If you've ever unexpectedly lost a job you may have had a small taste of what it's like. However, there's a big difference between scrambling to restart your working life (and associated income, etc.) in the next few weeks versus confronting the prospect of having no working life at all for the rest of your life. Transient unemployment is a situational challenge; retirement is seen as a permanent and final state of affairs. Consider this ... Transient unemployment is the figurative equivalent of a flesh wound / injury, whereas final retirement is akin to a total / permanent disability. Big difference ...

 

[ramonmercado]

I was able to retire at 49, and l’ve had the time of my life since then.

During my police career, however, the grim stats were that the average copper retired at 51 and was dead at 58. I suppose that this resulted from decades of shift work, stress and crappy food snatched at all hours of the day; also the ennui of which Sherlock Holmes regularly complained to Dr. Watson when the flow of new cases dried up.

I’m delighted to be beavering away at shifting the right-hand end of the bell curve farther in the correct direction!

maximus otter

I took early retirement when I was 3 weeks shy of 51. i haven't faded away and it's coming up on 10 years now.

Having interests, things to do which you like, doing courses at TCD.

Now I've just got to survive this Zombie Apocalypse and all will be well.

 

[GingerTabby]

My father worked for the same bank for 44 years and retired at 60, saying that he had seen colleagues work until normal retirement at 65 and die soon after, and I've seen this happen myself. What exactly are the reasons for this though? Can't just be because you have "no reason" to get up in the morning. What physically is going on, apart from the effects of hard physical labour and illnesses from industry which some have had to endure?

EnolaGaia has made some excellent observations. I've nothing substantial to add to his comments but would simply like to highlight his point about family matters being a source of stress. I've known several people who were eligible for retirement but continued to work full-time in order to avoid unpleasant home situations. While loneliness and isolation can take a toll on a person's mental and physical health, so can domestic or marital turmoil.

I fear that a friend of mine may be going down this path. He is 69 and plans to retire next year. For financial reasons, he has been unable to retire earlier. My friend has never married or had children and he plans to sell his current home and return to the small city where he grew up and live in his childhood home, which his parents left to him. His sister and her four adult children live in the same city. His mother died three years ago at the age of 97 and my friend bore the sole responsibility for her care even though he lives in another part of the country. His sister and her offspring did next to nothing to help the mother. My friend's repeated comments about the situation raised red flags with me but he seldom questioned his family members' inaction. It didn't seem to occur to him that they were neglecting his mother, or perhaps he didn't want to admit it. My concern is that the sister and her offspring will repeat this behaviour with him. They will likely persuade him to give them money, as they did with his mother, and then abandon him when the piggy bank is empty. It's a worrying thought but there isn't much I can do about it.

 

[EnolaGaia]

EnolaGaia has made some excellent observations. I've nothing substantial to add to his comments but would simply like to highlight his point about family matters being a source of stress. I've known several people who were eligible for retirement but continued to work full-time in order to avoid unpleasant home situations. While loneliness and isolation can take a toll on a person's mental and physical health, so can domestic or marital turmoil. ...

First - thanks ...

One of the long-term friends I mentioned earlier eagerly accepted contract / project work that would require him to live for months (or even years) at least one or more hundreds of miles from his family home. The last decade (more or less) of his life he was never at home and dealing with family issues for any length of time. In his case, there was a marriage that had gone 'dead' once the children were grown to the point of making their own way in the world, and he frankly found it dull and confining to be in the home environment.

This situation was compounded when his wife ran up a six-digit mass of debt by going overboard in trying to prepare for opening a shop she'd wanted to operate. This both motivated him to continue accepting higher-paying project assignments 'on the road' and gave him an excuse for warding off the wife whenever she complained about his persistent absence.

He'd joked for years that he'd never live to see retirement, and he was right. He was quite content with his 'road' life as his primary life, but the burdens of supporting two lives rather than disengaging from his former (married) situation essentially guaranteed he'd crash and burn.

I've known other - less radical - cases in which one or both spouses continued working past retirement age because (e.g.) (a) working life had supplanted home life as the 'center of gravity' for one or both of them or (b) home life involved unpleasantness or conflict that rendered it something one or both folks actively avoided.

In both these types of scenarios, I can't help but believe there's a common factor - the idea that the structures / obligations / 'baggage' one establishes early in adult life can end up being maintained simply as a matter of inertia until it's too late or too difficult to even conceive of making any further mid-course corrections. Choices made in one's (e.g.) twenties sometimes fail to fit later or eventual circumstances, and remaining on casual cruise control for decades can blind one to the need and / or ability to change in light of those circumstances.

Modern institutions and processes seem to be geared toward forcing young people to lock themselves into a long-term lifestyle from the get-go but offer little guidance or allowance for adjustments or adaptations on the back end (eventual retirement).

 

[Cochise]

Having something outside of work. I used to think that was desperately important, having seen the rapid decline in my father when he could no longer work. But I'm not so sure now - even though I have many interests now my work is pretty much finished I still feel the loss very deeply. And it has affected my commitment to my hobbies. I got in to my line of work in my early twenties in a kind of career change but I've been there ever since and EnolaGaia's point about structures being established in one's twenties may be relevant. Same would have been true of my dad.

Maybe the big thing for a long life is a supportive extended family. Something I lack, as did my father - OK, he had his wife and two sons, which he felt he had let down (he hadn't) but we had nothing beyond that, all grandparents having passed by then and little or no contact with other relations.

 

[escargot]

In times past many men smoked heavily. They'd reach their mid-60s and coincidentally retire around the time the damage their habit had caused was kicking in.

I saw this in previous jobs. Not only was I often looking after elderly men who were suffering from smoking-related illnesses, the care homes were full of widows. Women hugely outnumber men in those places.

I expect the gap to narrow at some point after the temporary rise in numbers of female smokers, then reflect the overall decline in smoking. We'll see.

 

[PeteS]

In times past many men smoked heavily. They'd reach their mid-60s and coincidentally retire around the time the damage their habit had caused was kicking in.

I saw this in previous jobs. Not only was I often looking after elderly men who were suffering from smoking-related illnesses, the care homes were full of widows. Women hugely outnumber men in those places.

I expect the gap to narrow at some point after the temporary rise in numbers of female smokers, then reflect the overall decline in smoking. We'll see.

Strange isn't it. My dad smoked for the best part of 70 years, never had a day in hospital in his life. Played and watched live or on the telly rugby, football, cricket and snooker and liked a good drink with his contemporaries and was a bank manager - a real man's man as they used to be called. Someone who you might have expected to "give up" on retirement, but he had 26 years of it and enjoyed every minute..

 

[EnolaGaia]

Having something outside of work. I used to think that was desperately important, having seen the rapid decline in my father when he could no longer work. But I'm not so sure now - even though I have many interests now my work is pretty much finished I still feel the loss very deeply. And it has affected my commitment to my hobbies.

I'm not sure the key factor necessarily maps onto one particular side of the 'work' versus 'hobby' dichotomy. IMHO the key factor is something along the lines of Sigmundsson's 'passion' - the degree of personal investment in a subject or activity, especially when the investment requires little effort because the subject or activity draws one's interest and attention.

The way I typically describe it is that I reconfigured and re-engineered myself so that my employment prospects aligned with my personal interests and the kinds of activities I enjoyed doing. I refer to this as making my profession my game - i.e., the thing I'd find rewarding and even fun to engage in even if it wasn't a source of steady income. In this sense I certainly don't mean 'game' to imply something trivial or non-serious. Instead, I mean something that holds my interest, reflects my interests, allows for learning to expand my knowledge / understanding in the context of those interests, and affords me the satisfaction of accomplishing something that others often thought couldn't be done.

Consider the 3 personal examples recently cited above: maximus otter, ramonmercado and myself ...

All three of us were privileged to turn our attentions away from a daily grind supporting someone else's agenda toward focusing on our respective preferred 'games' (in the sense I outlined above) at around the time we each turned 50.

The biggest difference is that in my case I'd achieved the 'slack' required to engage my 'passion' (subject matter; projects) on my own terms (at home; on my own schedule; self-motivated rather than externally compelled), and hence continue my profession in a manner more like pursuing a hobby or avocation.

 

[Xanatic*]

I also get the impression that widows do better than widowers. Men seem to just give up the ghost when their wife dies.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... I got in to my line of work in my early twenties in a kind of career change but I've been there ever since and EnolaGaia's point about structures being established in one's twenties may be relevant. Same would have been true of my dad. ...

My first round of university experience involved a broad-ranging liberal education and a customized major focused on a topical theme that was - and still is - my 'passion.' By the time I graduated I was in my early twenties and already had a work history spanning almost a decade, ranging from odd jobs for family, summer jobs and gigging with bands up to two part-time work-study jobs (archive researcher and data coder; clerk-typist).

SIDE NOTE: If there's one thing I strongly believe today's young folks lack (at least in the US context) it's exposure to job / work experience in the teen years. Many of my lessons learned and career decisions made derived from those teen age experiences. Most of my surviving friends from youth and I agree that these seemingly transient experiences were far more valuable for the long haul than we would have imagined at the time, and we bemoan the fact younger folks today often make it to adulthood without the benefits of such experiential learning. Moving back to the subject at hand ...

Upon graduation from university (the first time) I had to admit that I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I'd unexpectedly ended up out on the road as a musician, and for the next few years I more or less self-identified as a musician with a day job that was interesting but which I didn't seriously consider as a long-term career. I set myself a deadline of age 30, at which time I had to either already pursue or choose a long-term vocational path. Another stint out on the road convinced me music wasn't the appropriate choice for that vocational path (though I continued gigging part-time for years thereafter). In my mid-twenties I shifted to a career-path civil service job that paid well and could have served as a long-term professional path, but I always considered it as a safe / secure launch platform for whatever long-term path I would choose. I was in my thirtieth year when I made my prescribed choice (IT; computer science) and I was bootstrapping myself in that path back at university (while working full-time) when my 30th birthday occurred.

Here's my point ... I recognized in my early twenties I wasn't really ready to make a lifelong vocational commitment, so I tried a variety of things (all of which allowed me to learn more) until I made the commitment circa a decade later than most of my peers / colleagues / friends. Decades later, many of those same peers / colleagues / friends would admit they'd entered themselves into the first available groove and ridden along within it until it became a rut. Some were quite despondent - and even bitter - about having locked themselves down prematurely.

I'm eternally grateful for not allowing myself to be stampeded or browbeaten into making the long-term commitment until I'd surveyed multiple possibilities, learned what I did / didn't want out of my working life, and made a more informed decision. It wasn't easy to do this. I endured a lot of well-meaning prodding and criticism for being self-sufficient yet somehow adrift through my twenties. Once I'd chosen the direction I put out tremendous effort to pursue my new objectives with a vengeance, and I repeatedly took every emerging opportunity to advance as far as I could. This is why I refer to that period as a quest.

I'm not recommending that everyone follow my example, and I'm not slamming those who committed to their long-term careers fresh out of secondary school or undergraduate college. I'm just saying there are risks in jumping into possibly lifelong commitments before you really know what you want out of life. It generally gets more difficult to adapt or reinvent yourself as you get older, and these shifts may be out of reach if you've overburdened yourself with 'baggage' in the earliest phase of the race.

 

[brownmane]

My first round of university experience involved a broad-ranging liberal education.

I think that people who have a broad range of knowledge and experience do do better with life changes.

I have changed jobs numerous times, sometimes due to circumstances not of my choosing and sometimes of my own choosing. I do know what types of jobs suits me and what I want from a job. My education is varied as I have taken courses or full programs so that I can work in the types of jobs I like.

I have also found that I cannot stand being bored in a job. I work in venues that involve supporting people where the daily work may be the same, but I have some autonomy to decide how and when I do it. People being people, I also get enjoyment from getting to know these people and assisting them to achieve what they want in life.

I did have a job for 11 years as accounts payable clerk in local hospital. I enjoyed the office camaraderie and liked working with numbers and dealing with vendors. At the time, I worked daily with people and I had some autonomy as to how I completed my work. When my job changed and became computerized, I was limited to clicking "ok" on computer. I could not even correct my own simple mistakes. It became boring.

Though many people could not understand why I'd give up a good pension plan (I could have been retiring with full pension 4 years from now), I quit and went back to school to up date my skills. Of course I had the finances to do this, but would have quit regardless and found something more fitting.

Getting back to Enola's comment, I do believe that the more varied that your experiences in life are, gives you the confidence to believe in your abilities and the confidence to pursue whatever gives you true enjoyment.

People who feel that they've only done one thing their whole lives, have not really either had the chance nor been given the chance to test their "grit" (This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie on the path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Distinct but commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement" and "conscientiousness". Wikipedia). These people tend to not have the belief in themselves, nor the confidence that they have any worth outside of their narrowly viewed definition of self.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I think that people who have a broad range of knowledge and experience do do better with life changes.

Agreed ... The wider the range of possibilities you know about from experience or learning, the wider the range of options you can recognize and consider. If one defines things too narrowly the resultant mindset can serve as virtual blinders constraining the perceptible and conceivable range of possibilities to no more than the range of the comfortably known.

I have changed jobs numerous times, sometimes due to circumstances not of my choosing and sometimes of my own choosing. I do know what types of jobs suits me and what I want from a job. ...

There's much that one can (or at least should) learn from experience, and the things one can learn are invariably both positive and negative.

It has long amazed me how often folks learn no lessons from past experience and fail to recognize when they're repeating a situation (e.g., a job; a type of work or workplace) that they've previously found distasteful and left behind.

On the more positive side, there are lessons learned about working and the particular work done that can carry forward to subsequent jobs and projects. Some of the key habits and tips I used to great benefit in the last phase of my working life dated all the way back to my earliest jobs.

I have also found that I cannot stand being bored in a job. I work in venues that involve supporting people where the daily work may be the same, but I have some autonomy to decide how and when I do it. ...

I did have a job for 11 years as accounts payable clerk in local hospital. I enjoyed the office camaraderie and liked working with numbers and dealing with vendors. At the time, I worked daily with people and I had some autonomy as to how I completed my work. When my job changed and became computerized, I was limited to clicking "ok" on computer. I could not even correct my own simple mistakes. It became boring. ...

I survived and benefited from otherwise mundane drudgery and boredom by challenging myself to perform my work better and to find new ways to accomplish my tasks. It's a facet of the same 'game' orientation I mentioned earlier. If the game gets to be a drag, I work on improving my capacity and abilities. If nothing else, it makes the time pass faster.

... I do believe that the more varied that your experiences in life are, gives you the confidence to believe in your abilities and the confidence to pursue whatever gives you true enjoyment.

People who feel that they've only done one thing their whole lives, have not really either had the chance nor been given the chance to test their "grit" (This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie on the path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. ... These people tend to not have the belief in themselves, nor the confidence that they have any worth outside of their narrowly viewed definition of self.

There's a fundamental and very important issue here, but I've been reluctant about framing it in terms of 'confidence' per se. People - particularly people unfamiliar with 'winging it' themselves - interpret any allusion to confidence to imply confidence about the outcome of pursuing a new objective or turning onto a new path.

I've taken a lot of chances in my time, and they've almost always paid off. However, I can't say I was ever really confident about the outcome when I took the first step in a new direction. In all honesty, what confidence I ever really possessed never extended any farther than self-assurance that the new direction was worth the attempt and no matter what (i.e., 'win, lose or draw') I'd learn something and be able to keep on keeping on.

In other words, I was confident about no more than the viability and the survivability of the attempt itself.

People who've known me since our youth have congratulated me for taking chances and trying new things that led to advancement. Many have expressed a wish that they'd tried more diverse things themselves. Of those who'd confronted opportunities they ended up never pursuing the common factor wasn't a failure of confidence in the outcome. It was failure to accept any risk and take that first step. They fell short of 'grit' at the very beginning - the point where stopping dooms not just a particular possibility but all possibilities.

 

[Bad Bungle]

Toes are killing me so I went into the Chemist to get some cream. Of course I couldn't find anything, so asked an Assistant if Boots sold anything for chilblains. She gave me a pitying look and said she didn't know what that was.
Bless.

 

[escargot]

Toes are killing me so I went into the Chemist to get some cream. Of course I couldn't find anything, so asked an Assistant if Boots sold anything for chilblains. She gave me a pitying look and said she didn't know what that was.
Bless.

The pharmacist would know! Pharmacists know EVERYTHING.

 

[SketchyMagpie]

I'm 37 tomorrow. I'm going to do my best not to post anywhere about feeling old because I know it only serves to haunt/annoy the me that inevitably sees that post again 10 years later and curses my youth! XD

 

[ChrisBoardman]

You don't have to be old for death to approach these days.

 

[Kondoru]

Happy birthday.

 

[Mungoman]

Toes are killing me so I went into the Chemist to get some cream. Of course I couldn't find anything, so asked an Assistant if Boots sold anything for chilblains. She gave me a pitying look and said she didn't know what that was.
Bless.

I would get chilblains on my fingers and toes in winter out here in Australia while I worked Dairies. I got told to start eating chillies - so I did.

It seemed to work.

Later on I looked the complaint up, and found out that anything that furthered the peripheral blood supply will help.

So any products that contain ingredients that produce a localized vasodilatory, warming, or rubefacient (such as menthol, camphor, methyl salicylate, capsicum, methyl nicotinate, benzyl alcohol, and eucalyptus oil). Others that are widely available to buy over-the-counter (for example, Balmosa®, Deep Heat®, and Mentholatum Vapour Rub®).

Good luck B.B. - they're bastards of things - especially when you go to bed.

 

[michael59]

Toes are killing me so I went into the Chemist to get some cream. Of course I couldn't find anything, so asked an Assistant if Boots sold anything for chilblains. She gave me a pitying look and said she didn't know what that was.
Bless.

I don't know what that is either. Sounds painful, what is it?

 

[michael59]

I'm 37 tomorrow. I'm going to do my best not to post anywhere about feeling old because I know it only serves to haunt/annoy the me that inevitably sees that post again 10 years later and curses my youth! XD

Happy Birthday!

 

[SketchyMagpie]

You don't have to be old for death to approach these days.

That's the spirit!

Thanks all

 

[ramonmercado]

That's the spirit!

Thanks all

Happy Birthday! Hope you get to watch some good Horror Film today.

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

Happy Birthday @SketchyMagpie

 

[Mythopoeika]

I would get chilblains on my fingers and toes in winter out here in Australia while I worked Dairies. I got told to start eating chillies - so I did.

It seemed to work.

Chilblains in Australia! I eat a lot of chilli and it does nothing for my chilblains.

 

[escargot]

I'm 37 tomorrow. I'm going to do my best not to post anywhere about feeling old because I know it only serves to haunt/annoy the me that inevitably sees that post again 10 years later and curses my youth! XD

Happy birthday!

I wish I were 37. Or 47. Or 57, at a push.

 

[Bad Bungle]

I would get chilblains on my fingers and toes in winter out here in Australia while I worked Dairies. I got told to start eating chillies - so I did.

It seemed to work.

Later on I looked the complaint up, and found out that anything that furthered the peripheral blood supply will help.

So any products that contain ingredients that produce a localized vasodilatory, warming, or rubefacient (such as menthol, camphor, methyl salicylate, capsicum, methyl nicotinate, benzyl alcohol, and eucalyptus oil). Others that are widely available to buy over-the-counter (for example, Balmosa®, Deep Heat®, and Mentholatum Vapour Rub®).

Good luck B.B. - they're bastards of things - especially when you go to bed.

Seems that all compounds that cause vasodilatory warming smell like .. well, old men. The chilblains burn during the day but I have found some chamomile lotion that is quite soothing, and the toes are freezing at night regardless of socks or hot water bottles - even the toe nails have gone black.
Can't wait for this year would end