Being relevant never had a lot of relevance for me at any time. Because I am an organizational wolverine and have a wide range of artistic and design talents and skills, I’ve never had any lack of appreciation. Most people lack these things.
My church still thinks I’m great (I have retained a useful portion of my former lyric soprano range, for one thing). My family appreciates me. My dogs think I’m God. Popular culture started passing me by in the 1980’s, I’m used to it. Technology began to bewilder me about ten years ago, and now most of it is purely pointless and irritating, since what I want is practicality and reliability, and it offers neither of those things any more.
We have some young back-to-the-lander neighbors who often come to us for advice, since frankly we did everything they are trying to do, long ago. They accept it to the degree their personalities allow; the husband is one of those people who would far rather reinvent his own wheel than borrow from someone else’s lifetime of experience, but he does like to talk. In general though, rural people respect experience and memory much more than city folks. Nobody more trusted than that old livestock vet who knows every trick, or the old hay farmer with sixty seasons behind him. Even if they aren’t up on the latest thing.
I just turned 62 wife is coming up on 64. I’m on a second career that just offered me a large incentive bonus to not retire from it. I have until January to make my decision. I also own a sporting goods business that is thriving. My wife and I have a combined cash worth of 8 million but a good chunk of that is in deferred compensation packages that haven’t had taxes paid yet.
I would actually feel more irrelevant if I were to retire completely. I could sell the store, take a second pension from my job and dip into our 401 and 403 plans. With SS we’d have annual incomes of almost 400K and a few million in savings.
But without a structured lifestyle I think we’d find ourselves in a state of atrophy. At least eventually. Sure, we’d travel even more than we already do in the beginning. But I think I would find myself putting things off as I would feel I always have time for it. Now with a business and a job I have people counting on me. And I am well respected on both acconts. The more I have on my plate the more motivated I feel to get things done and not just sit around.
I’m leaning towards keeping the job and business until I am 67 IF I can physically keep doing the job which so far I can. The backdrop bonus doesn’t pay off for 5 years anyway.
61, not married, no kids. My friends have eroded away, due to COVID quarantines and having their own families to occupy their lives. Others are dying off. I lost my job during the 2008 Tech Crunch, and it took me 6 years to find full-time work while I drained my retirement accounts dry. I’m never going to retire. I still live and act like a college student.
I have a quick turnaround reputation at work because I don’t have home obligation-related delays, so I at least provide that kind of value. I think I am respected at the office, since I protested how they passed me up for a promotion a few years ago and they took that as a potential age discrimination lawsuit. There’s benefits to working for guilty liberals.
The wife and I are early to mid-60s. I can’t say we’ve noticed that much difference in how people relate to us. That could be because we still act and get around about like when we were in our 50s or even 40s. When I was a lad, people my age tended to hobble around on a cane and just be all-around frail. People seem healthier these days. That’s certainly true here in Hawaii, which by many measures is the healthiest state in the country.
I’m 63 and live with my husband. He has Parkinson’s. It came on quickly sort of. In other words: He had it a long time and no one caught it until he took a fall. I take care of him, work part time, and my adult son move in during Covid so as not to be alone and to help me.
My daughter: I love her, but she and her family are driving me crazy. They don’t live with us, but may as well. She and her husband are so dependent on me that I would move if we could afford it.
My coworkers are all younger than me, but I am not a typical 63 year old. I don’t feel out of touch. Probably because my son listens to a lot of cutting edge podcasts, and we are probably the most socialization either of us gets.
I really wish I could feel irrelevant. I’m tired. All I want to do is sleep and read to shut out the world. I raised my kids … at least I thought I did. I just can’t figure out where I went wrong.
I’m 65, newly retired, and rather happy to feel no longer plugged in/respected/relevant. For over 2 decades, I was in a position of high responsibility; not just taking care of patients, but also trying to keep a very chaotic statewide health care delivery system functioning through some very VERY trying times. I was respected widely and very relevant to the success of the organization and honestly, it contributed to my being severely burnt out.
So I’m pretty content right now, dealing with friends, family, spouse, neighbors with very few expectations on me. Doing what I want, when I want, how I want. Power napping, staying up until after 11 PM sometimes, sleeping until after 8 AM sometimes, reading, surfing the net, amusing myself with projects here and there. This is what I dreamed of: Out of the circles of power and excess responsibility and left to my own devices.
I’m 65 and down to a 3 day work week, so I consider myself 40% retired. This year I’m trying to transfer what knowledge I can to other folks I work with, and therefore I’m spending a lot of time holding court and answering questions and giving presentations. I feel very respected. Though, only by those people who are listening.
I do feel a bit ignored, sometimes, in public. Which I don’t mind, as I mostly like being lost in a crowd rather than getting attention from a crowd. I think this is a form of feeling irrelevant.
And I want to be a little irrelevant. I’m tired of my involvement in things being such a big deal. I’m tired of everything coming to a halt if I’m not there. I’ve been on a stage lecturing or giving dog and pony shows so goddam many times, and I always feel anxious before show time, and I’m tired of it.
So, in big deal things, I’m getting irrelevant, but to my family, my cats, my friends, I feel nicely relevant.
Variable, certainly. My grandfather re-plastered our ceilings when he was in his mid 70’s [ETA: and I was a child]; a job requiring both a fair degree of physical strength and good balance.
I’m in my 70’s. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s (and since) I knew quite a few people in their 70’s and 80’s who were physically vigorous; some in my family, some old farmers in the area I was living in.
More people get to their 60’s and beyond than used to. And probably more of them do so without sustaining significant physical injury along the way. So there is some difference; but my impression is that a lot of the apparent difference is due to a lot of blurring in social ideas about how people should behave at different ages.
I always get a kick out of watching you young kids (that excludes thorny_locust, Voyager, Roderick_Femm, kayT, Hari_Seldon, and a couple others) talking about getting old. Most of you are not even old enough to remember when Time Magazine named us “Man of the Year.” (That was before they would have called it “Person of the Year.”) Relevance and respect have been questionable for quite a while.
I still figure I have something to offer if I need to and I have never been respected, so it is all good.
Agreed. I’m griping about a sort of “office politics” that has been played on me by a couple of nasty people. It wasn’t even a “thanks and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Others, higher up, have noticed it but have chosen not to say anything. It’s a bitch, bite me world.
In 1966 Time named people under 25 as Man of the Year. I assume that’s what he’s getting at. “You” was person of the year in 2006, but I bet it isn’t that.