Weekend Followed by 5 Saturdays

The other weekend I was on the golf course and my partner was a top corporate guy who had? retired a few months back. We were losing badly and something was amiss. Over breakfast midway I asked my partner sir how was life without office. He said,” Rajnish weekends are fine as I have Golf on Saturday and now accompany my wife to Church on Sunday but the problem is what to do on those 5 Saturdays after the weekend”. This too many Saturdays in his week truly befuddled me. I was at my wits end for words but I had to do something to pep him up, at least for the sake of golf game on that day. Ordering another egg with sunny side up for him I showed my empathy stating we should thank our stars as if we were born on otherside of McMahon Line or Galwaan(China) we would have been already playing golf for the last six years since the average age of retirement there was 54.5 years. I added while Xi has been able to postpone his retirement to eternity he was finding it extremely difficult to increase it for employees in China.

I think Mr Saturday thanked his stars & he played like never before. We not only could make up for front nine but won Rs 500/- by the end of the round. Our kind of golf falls in the category of 'digging dirt' and 'searching balls in bushes' so an addition of Rs 500/-to the pension is not bad in inflationary times. My partner was profusely thanking God for small mercies including choosing right longitude and latitude.

His five Saturdays after weekend truly rattled me. I was cursing Otto von Bismarck who introduced the first pension for workers over 70 in 1889 and at that time the life expectancy of a Prussian was 45 years. In 1908, when Lloyd George bullied through a payment of five shillings a week for poor men who had reached 70, Britons, especially poor ones, were lucky to survive much past 50 years. So states were smart as retirement and pension was designed to be a brief sunset to life, for a few. Now polity and states are? stuck. While they are facing a herculean task of servicing pensions our guys and gals are unhappy with Saturdays too.

I remember I came across an article and study in HBR way back in 2016 ‘Why Retirement Is a Flawed Concept’ by Neil Pasricha. I had promptly given a copy to my boss who was on the verge of retirement but always wondered how the company would survive? without him. It was about the study of residents of the beautiful sandy islands of Okinawans in Japan who have one of the longest disability-free life expectancies in the world. National Geographic & researchers studied them for years and found out that Okinawans eat of small plates,stop eating when they are 80% full and have a beautiful setup wherein they are put in small social groups as babies to slowly grow old together.

Very interestingly they have an outlook of life very different from ours or that of the West. While we think of retirement as the golden age of golf greens, annual trips to Europe or even Char Dham Yatra for divine blessings to begin retirement, they have no word for Retirement,literally nothing. One of the healthiest societies has a word ikigai (pronounced “icky guy”) which roughly translates to “the reason you wake up in the morning”. In addition to many other things while studying 43000 Japanese adults in Sendai, researchers asked every single one “Do you have ikigai in your life”. At the end of study they found 95% of folks with ikigai were alive while only 83% without it made it so long.

To put it differently we don't want to actually retire and do nothing. We just want to do something we love. Pasricha distilled it into 4S’s:

Social: Friends, peers, and coworkers who brighten our days and fulfill our social needs.

Structure: The alarm clock ringing because you have a reason to get up in the morning, and the resulting satisfaction you get from earned time off.

Stimulation: Keeping our minds challenged by learning something new each day.

Story: Being part of something bigger than ourselves by joining a group whose high-level purpose is something you couldn’t accomplish on your own.

The point he made is that retirement is a Western Concept on a broken assumption that we want-and can afford-to do nothing.We know there are far more problems and opportunities on this planet than there are Homo Sapiens (Wise ones) to help with them, so go solve some! If you are feeling? lost, follow your heart, find your ikigai, and remember the 4 S’s.

Gentlemen and ladies, Pre-Bismarck era is back. Stop worrying you won’t be able to retire since you will be better off if you don’t. And stop telling me retirees, “When Sujata prompts I take bath and when she serves I have breakfast .Day time I watch IPL replays & in the evening IPL live but never miss ‘Acid Goswami’ along with dinner.”

Remember it is time to retire retirement. So what time is the morning alarm and what is your ikigai ??