Retirement Anxiety

Stephen H. Anderson, MD, FACEP

Nervous. Profound anxiety. I had spent decades preparing for this. I had gone to the classes, done the homework, paid the dues … but was I really ready?

35 years ago, I picked a date. Had everything since then been leading up to this? Was the time right? Retirement terrified me for a decade prior. Turns out the questions I had tortured myself with were pretty universal among most of my peers, but the answers from most of my mentors were similar…“It depends.” Pardon my French, but SHIT, THAT’S NOT AN ANSWER!

I’m not sure why I was so uncomfortable. Like I said, I had gone to the financial planning sessions. I had made a lifetime of financial decisions based on “retiring comfortably.” There were grasshopper moments, but every month, I had the diligence of “storing colony grain” that had been stashed away for the winter years of my existence.

I was in a comfortable economic position. I wasn’t free to gallivant without a worry, but barring catastrophe, I wouldn’t lack for comfort. A bit of a hoarder, the challenge would be discarding acquisitions, not how to garner more…

No… money would keep me honest, but it wasn’t the root of my anxiety.

There wasn’t any other lifetime longing for an alternative career or employment accomplishments I still yearned to fulfill. I had chosen a calling that exceeded every challenge I could have dreamed of. I had the opportunity to save lives daily, impact another human’s life in their most terrifying moment. To heal body and spirits.

In the moments between the one-to-one interactions that only medicine and religion can offer a professional, I also got to work to better the system. I came to understand that beyond healing one gurney at a time, I could impact communities. I was blessed to never be without recent successes but always with another challenge in front of me.

No… it wasn’t because I still needed to do something else that tore at my soul to accomplish. My CV read well enough already.

Maybe it was losing connections? We all remember dear friends we had felt we would never lose touch with, who moved away, and became only wonderful memories. Would I become just another memory?

One of the greatest thrills of critical care medicine is building teams. A core cadre of warriors you battled the enormity of trauma and pestilence with, then laughed, ate, and bonded forever with. Would I just become a mythical character in old war stories, never to wrestle in the actual trenches with my team again? Human bonds are why most people state they remain at a job - would I lose those connections?

No… I realized over 35 years in the same shop that everyone EXCEPT me and two clerks had changed over the years. Bringing new individuals into the fold meant creating new friendships and bonds, and I was good at that. I loved to mentor, entertain, and be educated and entertained. I would find new venues for that.

Was I worried about “finding things to do?” I had plenty of hobbies, and years with inadequate extra hours to master any of them. I was never going to join the Senior Professional Golfer’s Tour or display wood crafting artistic pieces at international shows. But I had lots of unread books, a handicap that needed lowering, trails yet to hike, and projects to keep my hands busy for decades.

No… I wasn’t worried that “idle hands would become the devil’s craftsman.” I slowly began to realize I was nervous, partly by the unknown. All my life, there had been answers that were found by asking, reading, and then testing well.

I had scored in the top 10% most of my life. But how do you get a 95% grade on retirement? The answer I wanted from someone wasn’t, “It depends.” I saw happily retired friends who had gone before me… was just “being happy” enough?

Then the epiphany struck me with my (present) answer to what made me worried, and I saw the pathway I needed to move forward. I needed to REMAIN RELEVANT.

I still needed to find purpose and to feel that that purpose made other’s lives better. THAT was how I could continue to grow and make my life better. I really didn’t need an income. I really didn’t want to be locked into someone else’s schedule.

To get an “A” in retirement, I needed a few simple rules to try and follow:

• Paramount, I needed to impact other’s lives in a positive fashion. One on one, and by continuing to create systems to do that. Stay tuned to hear more about the impact of the Exploring Retirement Section at ACEP, and The Naloxone Project.
• I needed, as much as possible, to have my schedule, be MY schedule.
• My mantra from work for 35 years morphed slightly. Instead of “family-first, whatever makes you whole-second, job-third,” it would become “family-first, what makes me whole-second, and now health-third.”

I will always remember a mentor of mine who gave me one very profound piece of advice that has been accurate for the 35 years I’ve worked toward this. “All successful beginnings include an exit strategy.”

I have to be honest - I’m still inventing my exit strategy two years into this new phase of life - retirement.

But I’m not anxious anymore. I’m profoundly fulfilled when I get to help others think though their anxieties and strategies, because my answer isn’t necessarily their answer. You see, “It does depend.” But I’m always happy to share my thoughts. Let me know your thoughts and if we can share ideas.