By Daniel Rigney
In today’s column we’ll consider some fresh and creative ways to euphemize the cultural shame of retiring a little early in American society. This is a subject I know something about.
My wife and I are academicians with a newly-empty nest. I have more than 35 years of college teaching under my robe, and when my wife received an auspicious offer of a job at a university in another city, we decided that I could afford to resign my long-held position and follow her there.
I was not quite old enough yet to qualify for reduced-benefit Social Security, but I was frankly burned out and ready for a rest – I mean a reinvention of myself.
No one warned me how hard it would be to describe myself as “retired” at the tender age of 61. I had previously planned to put in another five years or so on the treadmill, and I didn’t feel good about getting off before finishing my full workout. I am among the “young old,” as sociologists call us, and it seemed a bit early for me to be hanging up my battered briefcase.
I don’t know what the word “retired” suggests to you. Tired out? Used up? Badly in need of a rest or a reward for years of toil? All true, perhaps, but none of these sounded good to me.
These were all dysphemisms. I needed a few interesting-sounding euphemisms to describe my emerging identity, whatever it was going to be. But I needed some fresh euphemisms, some newly-minted memes, to move me forward. No “life at the crossroads.” No “golden years.” No “more time with the grandchildren” (don’t have any). No “exploring other opportunities.” No “long walks on the beach.”
Above all, no “consulting.”
Choose your own retirement euphemisms carefully to reflect your unique set of interests and qualifications. Be aware that the labels you choose for your new retirement identity may actually frame and define the direction you take with your life. They become your “brand,” as we’re now supposed to say. What could you get away with calling yourself, at least in jest, without risking criminal charges of perjury or fraud?
Everyone’s list of creative euphemisms will be different, of course, depending on our varying backgrounds, skills and interests. Here is an array of post-retirement identities that I could hypothetically lay claim to without undue dishonesty. I’m still deciding which of these to be.
So what are you doing these days?
Oh, I’m a freelance sociologist, or social-science fiction writer, or editor, or reader, or blogger. I write mainly about politics and the human comedy.
Or I’m an urban anthropologist or ethnographer or participant-observer, out in the field in Houston.
Or I’m a social or cultural or media or corporate or advertising critic.
Or I’m on an independent scholar, or postscholar.
Or I’m a columnist, or a correspondent, or a cultural reporter, or a mild-mannered satirist on the daily planet.
This is my not-a-retirement. If you need some fresh euphemisms to describe your own not-a-retirement, tailor-made to your unique background and interests, get in touch. I do some identity coaching on the side as a creative retirement consultant. I design later-life narratives. I’m what you might call a biographical reinventor.
In today’s column we’ll consider some fresh and creative ways to euphemize the cultural shame of retiring a little early in American society. This is a subject I know something about.
My wife and I are academicians with a newly-empty nest. I have more than 35 years of college teaching under my robe, and when my wife received an auspicious offer of a job at a university in another city, we decided that I could afford to resign my long-held position and follow her there.
I was not quite old enough yet to qualify for reduced-benefit Social Security, but I was frankly burned out and ready for a rest – I mean a reinvention of myself.
No one warned me how hard it would be to describe myself as “retired” at the tender age of 61. I had previously planned to put in another five years or so on the treadmill, and I didn’t feel good about getting off before finishing my full workout. I am among the “young old,” as sociologists call us, and it seemed a bit early for me to be hanging up my battered briefcase.
I don’t know what the word “retired” suggests to you. Tired out? Used up? Badly in need of a rest or a reward for years of toil? All true, perhaps, but none of these sounded good to me.
These were all dysphemisms. I needed a few interesting-sounding euphemisms to describe my emerging identity, whatever it was going to be. But I needed some fresh euphemisms, some newly-minted memes, to move me forward. No “life at the crossroads.” No “golden years.” No “more time with the grandchildren” (don’t have any). No “exploring other opportunities.” No “long walks on the beach.”
Above all, no “consulting.”
Choose your own retirement euphemisms carefully to reflect your unique set of interests and qualifications. Be aware that the labels you choose for your new retirement identity may actually frame and define the direction you take with your life. They become your “brand,” as we’re now supposed to say. What could you get away with calling yourself, at least in jest, without risking criminal charges of perjury or fraud?
Everyone’s list of creative euphemisms will be different, of course, depending on our varying backgrounds, skills and interests. Here is an array of post-retirement identities that I could hypothetically lay claim to without undue dishonesty. I’m still deciding which of these to be.
So what are you doing these days?
Oh, I’m a freelance sociologist, or social-science fiction writer, or editor, or reader, or blogger. I write mainly about politics and the human comedy.
Or I’m an urban anthropologist or ethnographer or participant-observer, out in the field in Houston.
Or I’m a social or cultural or media or corporate or advertising critic.
Or I’m on an independent scholar, or postscholar.
Or I’m a columnist, or a correspondent, or a cultural reporter, or a mild-mannered satirist on the daily planet.
This is my not-a-retirement. If you need some fresh euphemisms to describe your own not-a-retirement, tailor-made to your unique background and interests, get in touch. I do some identity coaching on the side as a creative retirement consultant. I design later-life narratives. I’m what you might call a biographical reinventor.
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