What Remains When Designation Disappears After Retirement?

After all, we have not retired from life. We have only retired from one way of living it.

Anil Kumar Sharma

In our society, we often identify people by the position they hold, the wealth they possess and the power they exercise. During our active professional life, our designation slowly becomes a part of our identity. The office, the chair, the cabin, the people reporting to us, the phone calls and the authority attached to our position become so much a part of our daily life that we begin to believe they are permanent. We start treating these decorations of life as if they define who we really are.

But the chair is temporary. The designation is temporary. Power changes hands and wealth can come and go. One day, we leave the office and suddenly realise that the world has continued moving without us.

For many people, retirement therefore becomes much more than the end of a career. It becomes an identity crisis. The phone becomes quieter, people who once waited outside the cabin no longer do so, and decisions that once carried weight no longer depend upon us. Somewhere within, we may begin to feel like warriors who have lost a battle of life.

This is perhaps why some people find it difficult to accept retirement. After spending decades building a professional identity, they suddenly have to answer a simple but difficult question: Who am I now?

I have seen this closely during my own professional life. While I was working in the institution, retired employees would often come to the management with their concerns. Their demands were not always big. They wanted a recreational space where retired colleagues could sit together, meet one another and spend some meaningful time. They wanted better medical facilities and some support for the concerns that naturally come with advancing age.

What struck me was that such genuine aspirations were sometimes viewed from the narrow perspective of cost, space or administrative convenience. At times, retirees appeared to be treated more as a liability than as people who had spent the most productive years of their lives serving the same institution.

I always felt that this was a short sighted way of looking at the issue.

The person sitting at the helm of affairs today should remember that the chair is temporary. The retiree standing before him was also once sitting on a similar chair, carrying responsibilities and contributing to the institution. And tomorrow, the person occupying that chair today will also become a retiree and may need the same understanding, support and facilities that he may be reluctant to provide today.

An institution should never forget its retirees because retirement does not erase a person’s contribution to its history.

The needs of a retiree are not a burden on an institution. They are, in many ways, a responsibility towards the people who helped build that institution.

This thought goes beyond an organisation. It applies equally to society and the government.

Senior citizens do not ask for sympathy. They ask for dignity. They want to remain connected, active and useful. They need spaces where they can sit, interact and enjoy companionship. They need accessible healthcare, opportunities for recreation and social engagement, and an environment where growing older does not mean becoming irrelevant.

No doubt, the government has taken several initiatives for the welfare of senior citizens. But there is still much more to be done. The real test of any policy is not only its announcement but whether an elderly person can actually feel its benefit in everyday life.

Those at the helm of affairs, whether in an institution or in government, must think beyond today’s requirements. They should also think about the society and institutions they themselves will live in tomorrow.

Because ageing is not somebody else’s problem. It is our future.

During my visit to the United States, another thought became more visible to me. In everyday interactions, people seemed less concerned about what designation someone held or how much wealth he possessed. There appeared to be a greater acceptance of the dignity of labour. Work was work, and a person was not necessarily defined by the position written on his visiting card.

I also observed many elderly people continuing to live active and independent lives. They were driving, working, shopping, travelling and managing their daily affairs. They seemed to carry age with a different attitude, as though retirement from a job did not mean retirement from life.

I am not suggesting that one society is right and the other is wrong. Every society has its own strengths and weaknesses. India has something deeply valuable in its family culture. Traditionally, our elders have been cared for and respected within the family. But that family structure is changing. Children are moving to different cities and countries, families are becoming smaller, both spouses may be working, and the old joint family system is gradually giving way to a different way of living.

This is where the senior citizen can face a second identity crisis.

The first identity disappears when the professional designation disappears. The second may emerge when the family role also changes.

Many parents spend their entire productive lives working for their children, often putting their own interests aside. But when the children grow up and create lives of their own, the parents may discover that the family structure they had imagined has also changed. It does not necessarily mean that the children do not care. It simply means that life has changed.

We therefore need to prepare for retirement not only financially, but emotionally and socially as well.

Spirituality and family can certainly give meaning to later life, but they should not become a last refuge after everything else has disappeared. They should have been part of our journey all along. Retirement should give us the freedom to rediscover ourselves, not the feeling that we have lost ourselves.

A progressive society is one that understands change and adapts to it. A society that only takes pride in its past but refuses to accept the changing realities of the present may eventually lose the battle of survival.

Perhaps we need to redefine retirement itself.

Retirement should not mean becoming invisible. It should mean becoming free from professional compulsions. It should give us time to read, travel, learn, meet people, pursue interests, contribute to society and simply enjoy being alive.

A designation is only a temporary address of our professional life. It is not our permanent identity.

When the designation disappears, what remains is our character, our relationships, our experiences, our curiosity, our compassion and the person we have built within ourselves.

The chair may be occupied by someone else tomorrow. The power may move to somebody else. Wealth may come and go. But the person we have built within ourselves remains.

Perhaps the real preparation for retirement is therefore not to protect the chair forever, but to discover who we are when we are no longer sitting in it.

After all, we have not retired from life. We have only retired from one way of living it.

Na takht rahega, na taaj rahega,
Kal se seekh aur aaj mein jee,
Kal khud teri taqdeer likhega.

(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE. The author is columnist | former banker | social commentator. He can be reached at: anil.kumar.sharma9419@gmail.com)