For the first time since we were confronted by the departure of our children for college, we boomers are scrambling. Not because of the immanence and inevitability of death, that’s a given — the hammer will fall. No, our lives have become another gateway. What will our lives mean over this final third?
We are no longer “middle”-aged. We have arrived at aged. Once blissfully ignorant of our bodies, they are now terrifying. We have seen many friends and peers die, 7,000 of us a day, so the end of life is often just a calculation. Looking at the obituary pages, comping lifestyles and Karma, most of us come to realize the futility of raging against the impending dark. Death may have lost some of its sting, but our lives now are a mirror — where once we thought the culture judged, we are judging ourselves.
The “Me Generation” was not born to its entitlement, American culture was its incubator. After the hopeless death of World War II, we were living miracles. We could do no wrong and defined a world gone wrong that we could remake. Many of us were nurtured in the mid-century sanatorium of WWII PTSD compensation — the Great American Suburb. As such, we were the center of an invented culture: malls, drive-through fast food, megachurches, and the promise of wide-open spaces.
“Work hard, play hard” was once a mantra — it’s now a memory for many of us. We boomers are in a crisis of confusion We do not know what to do. Retire? To do what? Work on? To what end? A divide is merging. There are now two distinct groups of baby boomers: those who “retire” and those who press on in the dance with the rest of the culture. It is an irreversible fork in the road. Do we continue to be validated in the world, or do we stop that basis of living and live “It’s all about me”?
But now the bodies that once expressed our control and authority now laugh at us. So we now segue every conversation into our health or that of others (doctor’s appointments, new aches, new diagnosis, and new meds). As the architect Le Corbusier described the houses he designed, our bodies have become “machines for living in.” Our day-to-day has become consumed with the task of ensuring the machines keep running one more day.
To what end?
Many have clocked out of the workaday world and put their minds in an RV to Nowhere. Nowhere is found in the Elderly Special Olympics of “retirement”: on Viking cruise ships, university alumni travel seminars, in “communities,” pretending to be athletic with pickleball and personal “trainers,” or endless visiting of grandchildren, playing golf/fishing/hiking.
But like the unrelenting reality of the obituary page, for some there is an inevitable depression when they find themselves in retirement, aka “God’s waiting room.” Some of those who have switched their lives into that alternate universe often decry it has an inconvenient truth: it’s not that great.
Just like God was not found in the next promotion or the child getting into Harvard or the “good divorce,” God is not found in the achievement of an idyllic retirement either. Because we do not define our lives, no matter how we strive to. Because God made us, is in us, no matter where we are or what we do.
So we are confused. I know a banker who gave up a huge income to save a beloved private school as its treasurer and went on to launch it into the next generation with a drive and belief that was far more important to him than salary. Another “finance guy” leapt into “retirement” in full comfort, control, and health. It was not enough. In endless training and focus he became a volunteer EMT and went on 2 a.m. calls. Both are not “home” yet.
It turns out that for many of us, retirement is not a reward. Our confusion in old(er) age is no different now than it was in our “peak earning years.” Because achievement, good works, or the dedication to control are not salvation. It seems that living for oneself on your own terms is not the life you love.
For me it is impossible to avoid the reality of being given everything. Life itself is now seen to be what it always was: a miracle. We earned none of our validations. Since “retirement” is not a reward but just the next part of that miracle, what do we do with it? “Having the most toys” may have been a rationale, but it is not enough.
We can check every virtue signal, write an incredible holiday card of children’s weddings, reunions, trips, grandchildren births, but we come to realize that is not why we are alive. All this happens because of the grace of God — not ourselves. Our only quid to that pro quo is devotion to him — that is all we have to give. As the apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Col. 3:23).
It does not matter if we are retired, volunteering 50 hours a week, running a company at 90, or simply checking out groceries at the Stop & Shop — if we think it is all about us, we are lost. If we try to invent our worth, we have lost it.
