Gail's Blog

Gray-Haired Workers–The End of Retirement

For those of you who follow my commentary, you know that I have been beating the drum of the end of retirement for many

Ready for relevancy

Ready for relevancy

years.  I used to say that the Soul never came here to retire.  Now, all you have to do is look at the headlines and see that the workforce has more gray hairs–and they are not just your greeters at WalMart.  Retirement was always a man-made construct and was a temporary state of the culture.

A few things we should be aware of:  social security and the governmental idea of retirement was created when life expectancy was 61 years.  Retiring at 65 usually meant you died before you could collect.  Flash forward with our life expectancy of 79 years and we bust that concept to bits.  Some of the government jobs even have retirement at age 50.  Gracious!  That’s a pipe dream and burdens the taxpayer.  Of course, this cannot last.  A complete modification of pension benefits and expectations of active workers are in the works.

FYI the over-60 population is growing much faster than the younger working-age population.  New solutions will have to be found to engage these older Americans in the workforce.  On top of that, research suggests that keeping older workers active in the economy will boost the gross domestic product.  Even better, evidence shows that working later in life delivers better health and satisfaction and helps lower age-related health care costs.

We will be changing our entire culture about aging and how we measure employment.  We need to know the work rate for people over 55.  Currently, that number is showing us that the work rate for older Americans has been rising for 20 years.  We also need training for older adults and some type of tax credit for those firms who provide this training.

The trend is now to work into your 80’s.  Who would believe this 20-30 years ago?  Getting back to the concept of the Soul retiring, the normal Numerological blueprint is 120 years.  Mid life begins at 60 years.  Childhood ends at 30 (most of Silicon Valley start-ups are still being created during childhood) We integrate ourselves at 50 years and step into our real power at 60.  How exciting is that?  Why do we look at 70’s as the audience waiting for the ferry man across the River Styx.  (Read Dante’s)

The key–stay relevant.  Stop eating poorly, get off the sugar, prevent cancer, straighten your calf muscles so you can walk without shuffling, buy better hearing aids and wear them, lay off inflammatory foods and eat correct protein amounts to build tissue.

Clubs of Relevancy can be formed to support living to 120 years.  We keep forming business networking groups for younger workers but people are missing the growing trend of the networks needed for the working older adult.  Forget the bingo and casinos, network groups for older workers are coming.    Our thinking about work, our activities, aging and retirement are being transformed.  Stay tuned and dust up on the latest technologies.  Robots will come to your rescue within 10 years so you can be freed from some of the mundane tasks that take your precious time and energy–much less your lower back.  Stay tuned!

 

 


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.