As a young academic hired into a largely older faculty in the mid-1990s, I watched certain colleagues become increasingly grouchy as they approached the final stage of their careers. Thirty years later, I get it: your sense of self, your vocation, the edifice that has housed your purpose and given your days and years meaning—all of it coming to an end. The conventional wisdom on this life phase invokes the perils of aimlessness and loss of identity as we step away from our work. Yet the research on the relationship between retirement and purpose is not all negative, and Hyrum W. Smith, the “father of time management,” urges “purposeful retirement.” Still, retirement shows you how finite your time is. If you stare retirement in the face long enough, then you can even see your death looking back at you. No wonder it can be hard to retire.
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