By Daniel Rigney
Let's 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'm 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 an 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.
Or better yet, a biographical resynthesizer, hoping to save the best qualities from the past, recombine them in fresh and interesting ways, and leave the rest behind.
People can and do resynthesize themselves. Why not entire societies?
*adapted from a post previously appearing in Open Salon, April 25, 2011, as "Fresh Euphemisms for Retirement"
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