Retirement is a big word and event in our society. What it means to each person reflects their life to date, how they have lived, what degree of success, satisfaction, and purpose they have experienced in their working life. Retirement, for many, holds aspirations, dreams, and expectations of a ‘better’ life after their working life has ended.

In July 2023 in Australia the retirement age to receive a government age pension was increased to 67 years for those born from the 1^st January 1957 or later. In many companies the retirement age is set, or the job is made redundant if the person doesn’t retire of their own accord. Recently in Paris and other French towns there have been protests (with some of the largest unions taking part) over government pension reforms to raise the retirement age to 64. There can be a sense of entitlement to be rewarded at the end of a working life with a pension.

But is the focus on dreams of retirement a distraction from what the later cycles of our life are really about?

When I reflect back on my life I realise there is an all-encompassing plan that has been evolving over the decades and years, deeper than the roles that I have lived.

What if we look beyond the need for security, beyond the fantasies of an extended adventurous or comfortable holiday (our retirement). Can we stay open to what awaits us in our elder years?

As a younger woman, in moments of stress and exhaustion, my dream of retirement went something like this: free from work, I would be able to paint every day, uninterrupted, live in a beautiful cottage surrounded by trees and overlooking water, travel, lie on a beach in the sun, read books and cook healthy food. Wow! I have just realised that there weren’t any people in this utopian fantasy! The dream held appeal as a young mother and teacher feeling overwhelmed with life, its pressures and demands, unaware that I was the cause of my problems! The picture of life in retirement was comforting, it was a picture that offered a ‘better’ and easier life sometime in my future.

Now I am in that place of having well passed the retirement age and I have retired from full-time employment. How is my picture of retirement holding up?

Moving interstate several years ago, I now live in a beautiful home with my loving husband and we find ourselves joyfully sharing our space with others who are moving to this city for work. This wasn’t our plan, it was offered to us and we said yes. Our lives are enriched by sharing the home with younger people who feel like family. We have upsized our home, not downsized according to society’s picture of retirement. When we let go of pictures and expectations, and surrender to the Divine Plan, magic happens! Relationships are enriching and expand our focus beyond our ‘self’. Relationships have purpose and I appreciate how and why we are constellated to be with others.

What I have come to realise post retirement is that we may have retired from a workplace, but we don’t have to retire from life, from purpose, learning or people.

My husband and I are both still working part-time, and our working lives hold purpose and support us to enjoy relationships with those we work with. And when at home there is much on offer ­– painting, study, walking, exercise, cooking yummy nourishing meals to be shared with others, writing, and I also love cleaning!

So what is purpose? Purpose is how we live, the quality that we bring to each moment of the day. No material comforts will provide the richness of living with purpose. While our everyday life holds enrichment and engagement, there is a deeper purpose to embrace. There is a lot more happening than the doingness of activities. Do we bring focus to the energetic quality and energetic integrity that we bring to everyone and everything we do? If we live with this responsibility we are laying foundations for our next life. This is a foundation we are building, and so the quality of how we are living at home, for example, is setting us up with what we will come back to – the energetic quality that we return with in our next life.

Looking out at the world in the present day, there is much evidence that we as a humanity are in a big mess. The state of our ill-health, the levels of anxiousness, insecurity, neglect, poverty, inequality and corruption are becoming ‘normal’. The country I live in, called ‘The Lucky Country’ was recently divided upon itself, within its interstate borders, with the excuse of a virus. All these factors could be deemed good reason to give up and opt out. I am hearing older people talking about assisted suicide as the favoured option if they become incapacitated, or isolated. I don’t have solutions to these life dilemmas. Nor do I ‘worry’ about them.

What I am learning is to stay steady and focused and purposeful, connecting to my deeper inner wisdom, harmony and stillness, and to bring these qualities to whatever I am doing and whomever I am with.

I love my work, and I deeply appreciate that I am given the opportunity to support and work with people from all walks of life who bring their life experience and wisdom to enrich our connection. What I have come to realise is that what really matters are our relationships with each other, our communication and shared experiences as well as what we are engaged in together. There is work to be done in whatever capacity we are able to contribute. There are many fields of voluntary work that enable us to continue to be of service. Not service as in martyrdom and self-sacrifice, but service where we can use and share the skills and interests that we have developed over years of life experience.

In the places and spaces where I live and work, lives are being shared, insights and skills are contributed, and learning from each other is the offering for all. I am constantly confirmed that we all carry a deeper knowing and truth within that is much grander than we can comprehend. To observe life and live the grandness that we truly are – this is purpose. There is no striving for perfection or need to be better, no goals to get somewhere, but rather a focus on our inner qualities, our connection to our bodies, to our truth, and to express from this foundation. Life offers continuous opportunities for learning and evolution.

In our elder years we are in a cycle of preparation for passing over. This responsibility involves legal paperwork, wills, simplifying and decluttering our homes, so that we don’t leave a complicated mess for others to deal with when we die. Old photos and memorabilia, clothing and accumulated belongings need to be sorted, discarded or given away. As well as material possessions, we can also discard old behaviours and emotions that no longer serve us, such as regret, nostalgia, sympathy, reactions. This purposeful activity makes space for simplicity and settlement, as it affirms a cycle of completion and preparation – the deeper purpose of this cycle of life.

In our elder years we are preparing for our next life, our reincarnation. When we live with this awareness there are energetic, as well as practical responsibilities to attend to so that we pass over clear and connected to our Soul and aligned to God.

Life after retiring from full-time work and a career is an opportunity to set new foundations. In the decade of the 70s it is enriching to embrace the opportunity for a deeper purpose to be lived beyond everyday function. The body and the inner life are given focus. The body is calling to be deeply nurtured as it releases a lifetime of wear and tear calling for healing and tender care. As we connect more deeply to our delicate, divine body and its design, and to our inner heart, we realise that we are a part of a Grand Universe ­­– a Field of immeasurable Love and Wisdom.

It feels to me that as we grow older, and if we allow it, we are unfolding from within.

Our elder years keep offering the opportunity to deeply nurture our connection to our Soul, the One Soul, and to bring our lived wisdom and experience to the world wherever we are called to be.

The one certainty that I fully celebrate is that living with purpose is fundamental to our well-being and evolution. Purpose is the foundation given by the Soul, so that we can continue to live enriching and meaningful lives beyond society’s designated retirement age. We are given a period to complete, to prepare for our next life, so that we come back free of the compression we liberated ourselves from in this life.

Purpose is the simplicity of living our true vibrational, multidimensional nature in our everyday lives, each one of us designed to be an important part of the magnificent Universe.

By Anonymous, Australia

Further Reading:
Purpose at any Age
Reincarnation – Taking Responsibility for the Next Time Around