Why Many Don’t Retire from Jobs Even if They Can

Why is it that so many people don’t retire from their jobs even if they can financially? This is more prevalent than you think. Most of the time, people talk and analyze the financial side of being able to retire. Retirement planning on the internet is an extensive business. With many services that take advantage of people’s fears about not having enough money to retire. But many people who choose to continue in their jobs don’t want to retire because they don’t know what to do with their time when they retire. I am 51, and as I get ready to retire from my corporate job in 3-4 months; I have been researching this topic. So, in this post, let’s dive into why many don’t retire from jobs even if they can.

“Retirement is the last opportunity for individuals to reinvent themselves, let go of the past, and find peace and happiness within.”

~ Ernie J Zelinski

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Why Many Don’t Retire from Jobs Even if They Can

Retirement might sound a rosy topic with the visualization of a beach and/or golfing coming to mind. But there is significantly more to retirement, especially if you are retiring early. If you are fortunate to get the financial math right, then congratulations first, but then you have bigger challenges to deal with. This post is not about discouraging you from retiring early if you can but more so to make you aware of the obstacles in the journey and how you can tread them successfully. After all, we only live once, and retirement is an opportunity to work out of love versus slaving for money if we don’t need to.

To know whether we are working out of love or slaving, we should ask ourselves, would we still continue our jobs even if we did not get any compensation for it? Is the work we are doing more out of our love for the work and others whom we are serving or its more for our own selfish gratifications like money, power or fame?

Loss of Work Identity

If you ask, who am I? What is the typical response you’d get? For me, I could identify myself as an engineer and/or what I do for work. Or I could just identify myself with what I love doing, like blogging. Or I could keep going, trying to ask and peel off what I am not, until finally there is no answer that is who I am. Our ego identifies us with these identities because it strives for self-preservation.

Our job identity is a big component of who we think we are. Just imagine you go to a social event and, as part of the small talk, people ask you what you do or where you work? We go about saying this is the work we do for a living for the so-and-so company. But then what happens if you don’t need to work for a living? You just do what you love doing and/or serve others selflessly with no expectations. Then what is your work identity? Then if you say you are retired, the initial response is, are you really retired? You aren’t that old, are you? That’s an interesting one since I got that response when I shared I’ll be retiring by the end of this year.

Miss the Connections at Work

Talking to several of my colleagues who retired in their 60s from work, it is clear they miss the connections they had at work. Many yearn to go back to work. Even on a part-time basis, just to connect with the people they worked with for decades. Today I was talking to a friend of mine who retired from a corporate job in his early 40s. The only thing he hasn’t been able to do well in his 8 years of retirement is connect with people enough in person.

For me, I always cherished the connections I built at my workplace. They were a big motivator and a reason to love my work. I know my work connections would essentially fade the day I retire. Guess it will be a clean cut as I move into my next chapter in life. I will for sure miss my connections at work, but I know I will move on quickly.

Don’t Have a Purpose in Life

The key reason many people don’t retire from jobs even if they can financially is that they don’t have a purpose in life. Now, being able to realize our purpose in life is not that straightforward. It takes a lot of self-enquiry and self-reflection to identify our purpose in life. It is more of a self-discovery process to realize that. Now, people who have not identified their purpose in life get lost when they retire. Their jobs were their purpose. When they lose that, they lose not only their identity but also their raison d’être.

Don’t Know What to Do with Their Time

This relates to the purpose of our lives. Most retirees don’t have a plan for their retirement and suddenly don’t know what to do with that enormous amount of time. It is not uncommon for retirees to always have a plan. Many times they have some idea; it is just not formalized. It’s okay to figure it out, I think. I see in my retirement time, things that I plan to do including writing my blog articles. There are other ideas that I’ll explore. I think it is okay to have some adventures in retirement. Retirement wouldn’t structure itself like our corporate day jobs.

Spousal Expectations/Relationships

I bring this spousal expectations and/or expectations topic as one reason many don’t retire from their jobs even if they can because I know few acquaintances personally. Jobs are like an escape for many from their personal issues. Many times they are spousal relationships. It just gives people the opportunity to go out of the house so that they don’t need to spend all the time face to face with their spouses. Spouses have expectations that their partners to keep on working. This is interesting.

My wife wants me to go out in retirement and socialize with people to maintain/build connections, not necessarily to earn money for my well-being. Which I totally understand and appreciate. But if the spousal expectation for partners to keep on working in their jobs is just because there is that income source if they are financially good to retire, then it raises several questions about the intent.

Conclusion on Why Many Don’t Retire from Jobs Even if They Can

In conclusion, financial independence to retire is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is multifaceted. However, I think the retirement age is just a figure. Whether we retire at 51 like me or later, I think we need to have a plan. After all, we should live to work and not work to live. It makes little sense we keep on working at our jobs just because we have nothing else to do in our lives. So, finding our purpose in life is critical; otherwise, we are like a rudderless ship.