This Grandma is beginning a new adventure, the unknown world of retirement.
It seems that as a Baby Boomer, at every stage of this Grandma’s life I have had to deal with the enormity of the population bubble in which I find myself. As a teenager, it was the competition to getting into college. As a young adult, there was great competition for whatever career I might choose. As an adult, there was great competition trying to develop a career. And now, as I am supposedly transitioning into a different stage of slowing down, which in the past was called retirement, I am questioning the term as it applies to my life.
I hear from those who have retired before me that I am in the state of transition. I hear from those who have retired before me that it takes time to learn to slow down. I can understand that, after nearly half a century of working. Since I don’t know what the future holds, I am just dealing with today. I find that my Boomer friends and I, wherever we are and whatever we choose to do, are busier than we have ever been before. My friends and colleagues who have a chosen to transition into new careers, are busier than they were in their previous career. My friends who raised children now seem busier with their grandchildren than they were with their children. My friends whose primary avocation was to volunteer and work with charities are now more stressed for time than they were before and have taken on more responsibility than ever before.
I wonder if it is that we fear change so we just throw ourselves into denial? I wonder if we are now just reaping the benefits of lifetime of experience and are able to do more? And want to do more as we see mortality as a reality?
I have always spoken of capability, ability to do something, and disposition, wanting to do it. We Boomers are so much more capable now and we are wiser in years and experience. We are so much more willing and disposed to use those skills we’ve developed over a lifetime.
I do not know if the previous generation felt this way. I don’t know if others of my generation feel this way. It is how I feel today, just a short time into this next phase of my adult life. Who knows how I will feel tomorrow. And, as a Baby Boomer, I have to know that it will be okay and I throw myself into planning more travel and more time with family. I am so busy, I do not have time to think and contemplate the looming new stage of life.
As usual, just when I think I am different, I find that, as a Boomer, there is no such thing. In the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinal, December 27, 2016, I learn “‘Busyness’ is Now A Status Symbol.” The author, Jena McGregor, quotes researchers from Columbia, Georgetown and Harvard universities, busyness replaces “conspicuous consumption as a public marker for our worth. . . ‘busyness’ is an actual way that people signal their importance. . . .”
This Grandma does not know how I feel about this, but it makes sense. We Boomers who have had successful business careers are now having to deal with a change in status. If busyness now gives us a replacement status, we are going to be busy! But did the busyness and the simultaneous end to conspicuous consumption come first, and then the researchers noticed a new phenomenon caused by our huge Boomer population?
What is interesting about the article is how marketers are interpreting this information, that busyness is replacing luxury goods as valuable. This also makes sense. This Grandma recently failed to unpack from a European trip for several weeks. Of course, I was too busy. My friends were astonished as I am a very organized person. I came to the realization that I did not miss any of the items and therefore I have too many items. I do not need more goods, luxury or otherwise, after a lifetime of collection. I search for the special and distinct, and those goods are few and far between, at this stage of my life. As I provided in a previous post, experiences have replaced goods in value. And I am spending more time in
searching for value for money to be spent, even on experiences.
So, as a Boomer, I find, as usual, that I am among a huge group now making the life passage shift together. The author quoted, Silvia Bellezza, a professor of marketing at Columbia University, that being busy “is a more nuanced way to display [importance] that doesn’t go through conspicuous consumption. It’s implicitly telling you that I am very important, and my human capital is sought after, which is why I’m so busy.”
We Boomers are always the ‘human capital’ sought after. We Boomers always seem to shift societal views. We Boomers are always important to society. We Boomers are the status symbol. We Boomers are comfortably back in control–even in this new stage of our lives with
Joy,
Mema
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