I’ve been an emeritus professor for three years now, but I did not consciously think about retirement until a month ago. Being retired is something I am, not something I did.
Perhaps I just muddled through this transition marking the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another. I only began to fully consider it when a colleague — working on a paper about faculty retirement — asked me about my experiences. Three key themes emerged that I present here for others who are either newly retired or thinking about taking that step in the new academic year.
“So, what are your plans during retirement?” Get used to hearing that question. Some people will be genuinely interested in your answer; a great many others are just being polite. Learn to give a brief response and only elaborate when you sense true interest in your plans.
If you say, “I’m not sure,” be prepared for more than a few quizzical looks. Some people (retired or not) seem to think you must have a master plan — otherwise your retirement is a waste. I had no such plan. (I was never a master planner. Throughout my life, whenever I did have such a plan, it usually didn’t work out.)
One of the distinct advantages of retirement is spontaneity. You don’t have to be on the college’s schedule for everything you do. You don’t have to be concerned with canceling classes, falling behind, providing alternate assignments. Time is there for the taking — if you so choose.
It helps to have some structure in your retired life, though. For example, I am very happily married and my wife is also retired. We have an agreement: Every Tuesday I go and do whatever I want, but I am home at dinnertime. On Thursdays, I have the whole day to myself. If I want to be home by dinnertime, that’s fine. If not, that’s OK, too. Either way, my wife and I are each on our own for dinner.
No more teaching schedules, no more committee work, no more publishing deadlines — unless you want them.
At first, I thought I was being selfish with that arrangement, but it didn’t take long to realize that on those “me” days, my wife was also enjoying the freedom to do — or not do — whatever she wanted. It gets us out of the house and out of each other’s hair.
In short, give yourself time to be alone and structure that “me” time as loosely or as stringently as you prefer.
Professorial bulimia. Like most academics, I binged on knowledge during most of my 45-year faculty career. In the first quarter of my career, I bought books — lots of books. I also received tons of desk copies and collected professional journals, papers, and the like from various types of professional meetings. I cut out articles from newspapers and magazines with an eye to incorporating that knowledge into my lectures.
It is probably a truism that the final lectures of our very last classes are direct descendants of the very first lectures we gave. Of course, we’ve tweaked them here, updated them there, introduced new comedic materials, thrown out what didn’t “work” anymore, and revised as needed. But did we really still use most of those textbooks, articles, and handouts we saved from 20 or 30 years ago, especially when they have been replaced with new ones? Probably not. Yet much of that material remains in your file cabinets, on your bookshelves, on the corner of your desk, or in a pile on that extra chair in your campus office or at home.
Like many (most?) faculty members, I am a pack rat, a saver from the get go. I would always save stuff expecting to make use of it … at some future time. But that time never came for most of that saved material. Over my 45 years of teaching, it wouldn’t be difficult to count how many of those books, articles, and the like I actually used — or even remembered that I’d saved — from the tons of materials in my office. It was only years later, when I was purging my office, that I rediscovered the ones I really valued.
Word of advice: Don’t wait 45 years to sort through it all. And don’t just pack up your campus office expecting that you’ll have time to go through it “later,” once you’ve retired. You’ll just end up bringing home a dozen or more boxes, filled with stuff that will sit in those boxes, unless you have also purged your home office. Start the purging process at least a year in advance of your departure date. For as much as you think that’s enough time, remember: You’re still teaching and your time isn’t your own yet.
Purging is no easy task. Professors tend to have sentimental attachments to our books: Here is the first text we used in class, there is our favorite book in our field, and this one has all of our notes in the margins. Over there is a first edition!
Be judicious in purging. Of course you will want to save what is really important to you, but try to narrow considerably how you define “important.” Ask yourself: “Why am I bringing this home? Realistically, will I ever look at this again?” As you purge, you will find yourself reflecting on the items, many of which you might not even remember having saved.
I didn’t entirely practice what I am preaching. I had to force myself to purge, and I was not completely successful. I still have many boxes sitting in my house, all neatly labeled. Yet I haven’t opened a single one in the three years since I retired. Trust me: Purging is good for your soul and your marriage.
Be flexible. Your time is now your own in ways that it hasn’t been for decades. No more teaching schedules, no more committee work, no more publishing deadlines — unless you want them. Your family obligations or outside jobs may still remain during retirement, but you will probably find yourself with more time for you, if you care to look for it. It takes a while to be conscious of your newfound freedom. It also takes a while to recognize that it is you who must decide how to use it.
You may have to learn how to say no. With all of your supposed free time, there are those who will call on you to help out. You may hear, “Well, what else do you have to do?” or “Wow, with all of your free time, why don’t you (fill in the blank: babysit the grandchildren, help with a project, donate your time to a charity)?” Because you are retired and have all of this “free” time.
If you want to be involved in any or all of those activities, do so — as long as it makes you happy or satisfies a need that you have. But if you are driven by guilt because you are retired and have all that “free” time, don’t volunteer. Guilt is a wasted emotion.
And all of that free time might actually be illusory. As we age chronologically so, too, do our bodies. When it comes to health, the unexpected can often become the expected. So use your time wisely and start to understand your physical and mental limits.
These reflections are not definitive in scope, but I hope they help with your transition to retirement, whether it is around the corner or still some distant destination. If I’ve learned one thing in the three years since I left teaching, it’s that retirement is not overrated.
