The My Next Phase Newsletter - Volume 8 | |||
Friends, Family and Retirement
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No one needs to recite how important family and friends are to our happiness and well-being. What may come as a surprise, however, is how much more they can matter to our sense of social connectedness in retirement, and how friends may well trump family in the retirement pecking order. Our research proved that feeling connected socially is not only important for retirees; it measurably correlates to quality of life. Indeed, it's why we identified social connection as one of the five keys to retirement satisfaction - and why the Cheers theme ("...you want to go where everybody knows your name") may well double as The Retirement National Anthem. Loss of Work, Loss of Friends When we leave work, we physically disconnect from what may well be our primary social network. For many, work provides a rich, natural and reliable social life. Whether it's over-the-water-cooler, Monday morning quarterbacking, e-mail relationships with comrades we've never met in person, or the simple comfort of someone saying "hi" when we pass by, there's something for everyone. Unfortunately, we simply may not realize it until we've left work. For one, with retirement, we forfeit the sheer physical proximity that naturally breeds camaraderie among office mates. We also lose touch with the corporately-generated shared feelings and common goals that provide so much fodder for daily discussion (and complaining; if misery loves company, make that double at work). Not having every day goings-on as currency for conversation makes the very context for our work-based relationships vanish, and why many find maintaining "work friendships" -- even some spanning decades -- difficult once they retire. |
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Plan to Connect If you're the first in your non-work network of friends to retire, it can be a double-whammy deficit: no one at work, and no one in the neighborhood to spend meaningful time with. (If your spouse or partner is still working, make that a triple whammy.) A My Next Phase client hell-bent on a golf-centric retirement learned this the hard way. He consistently failed to get a weekday foursome of friends to shoot 18, and resented being appended to otherwise well-acquainted threesomes as (in his mind) the unwanted wheel. It made golf miserable, enough that he even called it quits for a while. A number of My Next Phase clients have decided to keep working, or even to return to work, after realizing how career's social aspects amplified the value of their paychecks. Others have made plans to connect to new networks rich with shared interests, or to test drive volunteerism to make new friends. Whatever path you take to staying connected, make sure it's one that suits your personality, is consistent with what you already enjoy doing, and/or acknowledges what you'd like to explore in retirement. Family Guy (or Gal)? Friends Guy? Both? Among your goals in retirement may be to reconnect with family you haven't seen in years, to perhaps to mend relationships that need it, or maybe become grandparent of the century. To be sure, each is noble. The problem is, many feel these are what they should be doing once they find the time, not necessarily what they want to do. This is why we like to say that in retirement, family is important -- but that friends may be even more important. Very simple reason: we're free to choose our friends. Not so for family, where we play the hand we're dealt. In fact, a growing body of research indicates that the social connections created through friendship helps fight cognitive decline, and leads to a greater sense of fulfillment as we age. Our ties and connections to friends come out of free choice, respect, desire and mutual interest. Family relationships typically don't enjoy the same sense of give-and-take that underpins most friendships. In turn, there tend to be clearer boundaries with friends than with family. Close friends call each other because they want to, rarely because they feel obligated to do so. Generally speaking, not so with family. How many "I have to call" calls have you made to family members? Compare that to how many you make to friends. You can fire your friends and they can fire you! Equally important, you can find new ones. Family has to tolerate you (and you, them) - for better or worse, mostly till death do you part -- while longtime friends consciously accept, understand, and desire to be in relationship with you, and do so willingly. The voluntary nature of friendship dramatically increases the level of social connection it engenders, leading to more fundamental fulfillment when work ends. Self Awareness Breeds Clarity As we often say, it all starts with the kind of self-awareness that leads to clarity. When it comes to social life in retirement, put it at the top of your list. It takes work that comes naturally to some, and a bit tougher to others, but the rewards come in equal measure. It's why tools providing insights into personality and past experience are so central to the My Next Phase program. To forward to a friend, please click here. To send a message or question to the My Next Phase team, please click here. To learn more about membership, please click here. Copyright ©2008 My Next Phase. All Rights Reserved | |||
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