Retirement Is Full of Decisions Part 3: Not Enough Bad News

Last month I took you with me on a romantic anniversary trip. My wife and I were spending a pleasant couple of days frequenting a bed and breakfast owned by some friends in a nearby small town. The first evening, we took a walk around town and waxed nostalgically about our fond memories of growing up in small towns. We even proposed the possibility of moving to one when we retired.

The next evening we took another walk around town. By that time we had

·     Eaten at the restaurant

·     Visited the antique store

·     Looked in on the town library (closed)

·     Walked all of the streets

·     Seen the school and the church

And that, as they say, was that. End of story. Done.

When we asked ourselves again whether we wanted to live in a small town, the definite answer was no. To those of you who love small-town life, and I know many who do, I hope you understand that we find ourselves in a different place. As I trust you’ve made a good decision for yourselves, I hope you wish us well in our decision too.

When it comes to good decisions, however, we both may have made a grave error. As human beings, we tend to seek confirmation for what we already want. I want to live in a city. You may want to live in a small town. When we go to find evidence to help make a decision related to where we live, we are likely to find evidence to support the decision we’ve already cherished down deep inside.

I know at this point that you are objecting. “No,” you say, “I threw pros and cons at it!” Sadly, if we do tend to seek confirmation for what we “really” want, the list of pros may have been longer because down deep, we really like the idea. And, if we didn’t believe it to be a good idea in the first place, our list of cons would have been more daunting.

And, it looks so scientific—having those long lists of “proof.”

So, when I made my list of the things we talked about the second night of the trip, I focused on the fact that a small town offers little in the way of variety.

The question we face is, How do we break the cycle and get better lists? The Heath brothers, in their book called Decisive, characterize the problem by asking, Would you rather read a report titled “This Report Supports What I Think” or a report that says, “This Report Contradicts What I Think”? The temptation is to choose the first.

Yet, to make a good decision, we need to seek the contrary evidence. There are several things we can do to head in that direction:

Find the opposite

Ironically, we’ve already hinted above at the first step. We need to spark disagreement.

That means that my wife and I may well benefit hearing from people as to why they like small town life. We should not limit our information to what we know personally; we should reach out. You and I need to invite people with opposite opinions to join the discussion, not to dissuade us, nor to prove their point, but rather with their main role being to care for our future.

However, before this conversation falls into an argument about who is right, we need to ask “What would have to be true for this option to be the right answer?”1 This means that we challenge ourselves to think about what answer would make us take the second course of action.

Going back to our example, this approach would mean asking what would enable my wife and me to live in the small town despite the lack of variety that we currently take advantage of by living in the city. What would happen if the small town we chose had convenient transportation, perhaps a good rail system, that could enable us to get to the variety we desire?

Likewise, if we really prefer the small town, we might hunt for options that would make city life more appealing. I recently heard an excellent presentation on a concept called cohousing. Cohousing creates a small community in the midst of the city.

For example, I live close to a cohousing community in Nashville within the Germantown area of the city. This housing complex has a rectangle of condos surrounding common courtyard with gardening and play options. The kitchen in each of these condos overlooks the courtyard allowing every family to keep an eye out. A small community center provides a place where families and smaller groups can congregate as well as share meals a dozen times per month. The design plan calls for an intergenerational community. All of this small-town-feel is less than a mile from the urban center of downtown.

Now, where do we stand? Still want to live in the city? How about the small town? Meeting each objection with a positive solution gradually moves the options closer together. When the options get really close, and we learn to love them each in their own way, we really have a choice to make.

Why? Because making a choice then means giving up something.

Go west out young man

Whether we go west or not, it is always a good idea to seek outside results—the big picture. How are people who live in a small town with access to a rail system using it? Do they in fact take advantage and go to the city?

What about cohousing? Do families feel a part of a community living there? How does the experience compare with small town life?

You find such information by talking to folks who know more than you. Don’t ask for predictions. Everybody believes their experience of moving will succeed. But if you find out how many do or do not, you can start asking questions about why. This search or reality testing isn’t motivated by a desire for scientific precision. It is motivated by humility—we’re not so much different from others who have tried and simply failed.

Once you know the odds, you can take the chance anyway. But you are doing so with your eyes open and, hopefully, new information. For example, I would like to know why some people did use the rail effectively and some not. I’d try to stack the deck in my favor and use that new-found information to help me use the rail to reach my goals. I would not want to feel that I had left a better part of my life behind by moving to a small town.

Do to know

Why not test the option yourself?

Go to the small community near the rail system, rent a room for a couple of days, and commute to the city for a movie. Then, evaluate. How do you like 1) having the extra time to read or nap on that wonderful commute or 2) wasting your time on that blankity-blank train?

Almost all cohousing communities have open houses for the curious to take a look. Some cohousing facilities have guest bedrooms or allow visitors. Meet and greet. See for yourself if you can find out what life is like. If the one you view is like the ones I know, you may even arrange for a visit at a community meal. Talk to residents about their cohousing experience, and talk to them about how it differs from their previous situation.

When it comes to making effective decisions, we want to avoid all the human ways we have of wearing blinders. We want options that have equal merit. We want to know how others have faired. We also want to how that option really “feels” by testing it. We want good decisions. We don’t want regrets.

Next time we’re going to investigate the old saw: “Strike while the iron is hot.” See how our enthusiasm can help or hinder a good decision.

Until next time…

Ed Zinkiewicz

…the retired guy

1 Decisive, Chip and Dan Heath, Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. New York. p. 99

2 Cohousing is such a popular option these days, a national organization has sprung up supporting the development of cohousing options. Check out cohousing.org for more information.