How long will you live? Stop dithering and find out.
This calculator will change your life -http://calculator.livingto100.com/calculator or change the way you think about work and retirement.
No matter how old or busy you are, you’ll anticipate that number popping up at the end – the one that tells you (based on genetics, health, stress, etc.,) how many years you could have left.
My number was 100. Since my dad’s 94th birthday is next month, I shouldn’t be surprised. But I am. I have A LOT OF YEARS YET TO LIVE … AND WORK. Longevity makes the whole idea of “retirement at 55 or 60″ more absurd than ever. Forty-five years to walk on the beach? I don’t think so.
Whatever generation you belong to in the workforce, keep your eye on the “mature workers” like me. We’re going to be superb role-models for debunking “retirement” as we know it today. We like leaving legacy.
Tamara Erickson is a respected, McKinsey Award-winning author. Research documented in Retire Retirement: Career Strategies For the Boomer Generation, (Harvard Business Press, 2008,) reports the attitudes Boomers currently hold:
- 75 percent said they will never feel elderly inside
- 80 percent described themselves as “youthful”
- Retirement is described as “second beginnings,” “a fresh start”
- Average retirees feel seventeen years younger than their actual age
- 40 percent of retirees have had at lease one occupation since retiring
- 50 percent said they would work in retirement even if they were paid little or nothing at all – (The group I hang with isn’t represented in this statistic)
So stare at that longevity score and sober up. Your future is changing. No matter what you’ve heard, sixty is not the new forty. Sixty is the new sixty and people arrive chewing on and spitting out new paradigms to be used as substantial springboards for the rest of us.
Although Boomers are quiet as they figure it out, it’s safe to assume the destruction of that tick-tock-your-career-is-over thing that was good for previous generations. You’re going to be regaled in the coming years with stories of employers who “flexed” big to keep talent – old talent. And you’ll find examples of individuals who walked out on a 40-year career for a new one. All with the ease and excitement reminiscent of changing lovers in the ’60s.
Young or old, “new ways to work and live” are upon you. Just knowing that your career strategy is getting a life-line of another 40 years, doesn’t that make you just want to shout, “Hallelujah”?
Or am I making an assumption?
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