Personal Growth in Retirement

Personal Growth In Retirement[1]

First:  “Retirement often leads retirees to conduct their own life review…The values of our past lives may no longer be relevant. Taking on the task of finding things that are more relevant to this new stage of life…By the time we reach retirement we usually have fairly good idea of our strengths and weaknesses.

“…There are many pathways to personal growth.  They include philosophy, psychology, religion, martial arts and various practices like yoga and meditation.”

“Psychologists have noted that as we age we tend to become more inwardly focused. Taking stock of our lives at the onset of retirement is an example of this inward focus.  Perhaps this tendency is a natural aspect of the latter part of our life circle that gives us the opportunity to put our energy into self-discovery.  This can be applied with Meta games played for knowledge and personal development.

One of the Meta games is the “art game”.  Although the ‘art game’ ideally leads to an inner awareness loosely defined as beauty it often results in artists who exhibit technical proficiency but lack inner awareness.

The “religion game” is another meta-game. In its’ pure form it aims at salvation or self-development of the person, but history has shown that the politics of religion has often or repressed this purpose. It is referred to as the “master game”. 

The basic idea underlying of all great religions is that man is asleep, that he lives amid dreams and delusions, that he cuts himself off from universal consciousness (the only meaningful definition of God) to crawl into the narrow shell of personal ego.

We have heard the old saying of “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”

The decision to retire and when to retire and when to retire are among the most important decisions workers will make in their lifetimes. The choice to pursue personal growth and has less obvious material repercussions.  Nonetheless, it is the option that may have significant appeal for some retirees.  (This is just a small toe of the book)

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[1]   Material gathered from Essential Retirement: Psychological Concerns Created by John W. Osborne ISBN 0-9738303-0-1