A PACK OF LIES
Don’t believe what they tell you about retirement. And don’t worry about it, either.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Everything you were ever told about what life would be like in retirement was a big fat lie.
You know what I’m talking about: The post-retirement expectations you held on to for years, all those life-changing experiences you were looking forward to once you had punched your last time clock.
Things you’ve put off for decades, the sanding and restaining of the deck, the vegetable garden that never got planted, the old friends you never visited enough, the exercise regimen you always meant to take up, the unread pile of hardcovers at the bedside.
If only you had time, you used to say to yourself, to do all the things you’ve always wanted to do but never could because you were always working, and then someone you know would say, no worries, you will once you retire. You will do all of it, and then some.
No you won’t.
I’m four years in, and that stack of books beside the bed? Covered in dust and mostly still unread. The friends who long ago moved a bit too far from town? Yeah, you still won’t visit them. The weathered deck and fallow vegetable garden? Get real. The muffin top and the batwing arm fat, accumulated over a lifetime of sloth? Still hanging in. Literally.
And then there’s the money lie. You were told, relentlessly, by friends and experts alike, that you would need millions — RRSPS, TFSAS, stock portfolios, savings accounts — if you planned to sustain your comfortable quality of life, and avoid taste-testing Whiskas-infused macaroni in your dotage.
No you won’t.
A good friend, a money manager by profession, advised me long ago that unless I was planning to change the way I was living in the years before retirement, to suddenly take up new activities — like getting your pilot’s licence or, you know, gardening — chances are I’d be no different after retirement.
Didn’t travel much in your working years? You likely won’t be investing in Tilley Wearables and hitting the Pacific Crest Trail in your 70s, so stop fretting, he said. Instead, try to be mostly debt-free, have a relatively new car and some savings and, with luck, a decent pension or investment income of some sort, and you’ll be just fine.
What he was saying, of course, is that we are creatures of habit and are the same person at 65 as we were at 64, so just make sure you can financially maintain your boringness.
It was really the only truth I was told. Here are a few more that would have been nice to know:
If you are a single mother who worked outside the home, for instance, you will wake up in retirement with a new perspective on parental guilt. Why? Because you get a bright, shiny do-over with your grandchildren.
You will also no longer care what other people think, about you or anything else.
And you will discover, much to your surprise, that you are more patient and charitable, and — get this — far more open to change and new ideas.
And you will definitely, and frequently, wonder where your eyebrows went.
You’ll sit in the sun more often staring at nothing, and finally pass chemistry class by learning to bake, and enjoy more than the recommended daily dose of Vera on Britbox, and spend hours on Facebook trolling your friends and even more hours rolling your eyes at the ridiculous Tiktok videos your grandson thinks are hilarious.
You’ll kick yourself for not buying Apple shares, or using more moisturizer on your elbows, or for sticking to one hairstyle for so long. And, trust me, you will still know nothing about wine except that some of it tastes good with a rare rib-eye.
But mostly — and here’s the important truth you were never told — you will be eternally grateful for having lived long enough to poke holes in that pack of lies.
Didn’t travel much in your working years? You likely won’t be investing in Tilley Wearables and hitting the Pacific Crest Trail in your 70s.