Retirement, happiness change source of self-esteem

They say a key to happiness is living in the moment, to fret less about the past or future, to simply be “fully present.”

True enough, yet it’s human nature — perhaps a survival tool — to plan. Perhaps that’s why the later phases of life are such a challenge; there’s not so much less to plan as less enticing things to plan.

Sometime after 50 begins a shift in thinking: Career advancement gives way to career phase-out (and when I say “career,” I’m including family managers and caregivers). If we’re not mindful of the common tendency of most career-focused and successful people, self-image struggles on the heels of retirement. That can feel like a punch in the gut that cuts deep into happiness, at least for a while.

Self-esteem must be measured from within. If you place a low value on yourself (not your resumé, but just plain you), you can’t count on the rest of the world to raise the price.

Conversely, if self-esteem is based largely on feedback from the rest of the world — respect for the work we do or the positions we hold — it should be no surprise when self-esteem suffers upon retirement or career phase-out.

Reading that on a page it seems so obvious. Yet for most people, the firm link between work feedback and self-esteem forms subconsciously. Even against conscious efforts to prevent it, the self-esteem of the enlightened and self-aware also tends to rely on this outside feedback. That, too, is human nature.

So when no longer consulted for expertise and advice, when we aren’t the “fixer” of problems others can’t solve, when we no longer experience that admiration, respect, or — let’s be honest — others’ intimidation or awe of relative power, there’s a gaping hole where self-esteem was once fed.

Everyone likes to feel useful and admired. Successful people become used to this kind of attention, another food source for self-image. So when it shifts or fades, how does one avoid the doldrums commonly experienced at career-end?

By refocusing in the moment, on the source: Self-esteem. And when that life-planning begins to shift gears, by starting the process with the end in mind. The beautiful thing is, as age advances we get very good at this. It’s probably not something we could accomplish easily in youth.

According to a 2006 analysis at University of Missouri of five years of research, the aging process helps most people become more self-determined, achieving a higher level of personal satisfaction. In other words, the capacity for happiness increases with age.

“In at least one way, we get better as we get older, by learning to resist social pressures,” said Kennon Sheldon, professor of psychological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science. “Thus, we don’t waste energy doing things we don’t believe in … (W)e learn to do things for the right reasons. We become more mature and make better decisions.”

So knowing that retirement comes with a drastic change in social feedback, and knowing that self-esteem will need a different source of nourishment with a greater emphasis on inner, rather than outer, measurement, it becomes possible to avoid the shock some experience at career-end.

By anticipating it. By starting early, practicing life in the moment — and appreciating not only that moment, but who we are as we live it. How far we’ve come, the mountains we’ve climbed, and the strength we gained doing it. Not the “doing” so much as the “being” it has made us.

That kind of self-esteem is not dependent upon the rest of the world, so it lasts and remains strong. And makes happiness in almost any circumstance possible, freeing us from inner struggles.

I’m not yet 60, so I’m only beginning this particular journey. But throughout life I’ve never wanted to go back to any age — my mind was too much trouble. What getting older provides inside has been worth the rest of it.

Here’s to wrinkly, achy, white-haired happiness.

“I have often wondered how it is everyone loves himself more than the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than the opinions of others.” — Military philosopher of the ancients, Marcus Aurelius

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at [email protected].