Monday

Jay Bloom's Alternative To Retirement: Returnment!

Last week, Jay Bloom, former CEO at The Morrison Child and Family Services, visited our office to reconnect with Carolyn Sheldon about his work with aging populations. Jay talks about the "spiritual need and moral necessity for redefining retirement with returnment."

Returnment – n.

      1) The act of giving back or returning in some small way what the world has given you.

      2) Especially as an alternative to retirement.

Returnment encourages older adults to spend their later years using their skills, resources, and knowledge to benefit the greater good. He is very impressed with our project, The Sheldon Cooperative. Jay has served on many professional and civic boards. He is a prolific writer and you can check out his web site at www.bloomanew.com. Do read his work titled, "Work after Work: Our new age of life and moral necessity for 'Returnment.'"

Here's an excerpt:

Tom Brokaw referred to the generation before the boomers as the “Greatest Generation.” These groups grew up during the Great Depression, and were generally parsimonious and thrifty when it came to savings versus consumption. As the “greatest” generation dies off, there will be a significant wealth transfer to many boomers on top of the already significant affluence that many boomers themselves have created.


The boomers have been described as a much more independent, “live for today” group. They are already showing signs that they will not approach retirement in a traditional fashion. Boomers are going to have great difficulty relating to the terms senior, elderly, old, and mature. In fact, most of them will resist, I believe, the term “retirement” in general.


In the August 25, 2000 edition of the Portland, OR Business Journal, Serge D. Rovencourt, retired general manager of Portland Hilton Hotel said, “I have retired from the Hilton, but I am not retired. I tell you I am going to find another word that is different from the word retirement. Retirement lends itself for people to say, ‘Well, he is tired, that’s the end of it.’ There has to be another word other than retirement.”


In a past edition of Modern Maturity, AARP’s membership magazine, editorial director Hugh Delehenty commented, “Baby boomers don’t want to consider themselves seniors—forget that word.” Marc Freedman, author of the book Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement & Transform America, commented about this new age of life: “I am very interested in how we are going to use this gift of thirty extra years that we have been given over this last century.” Boomers are being given an incredible gift; a whole new age of life that has been unprecedented in human history, an age where they will have incredible choices, flexibility, opportunities and for many of them, the financial wherewithal to pursue these choices.


Midlife has also often been a time to reflect on one’s purpose and life’s meaning. It is a great opportunity to explore one’s deeper personal values. It also often creates greater awareness of one’s death and the whole process of dying. As Morrie Schwartz said in the book Tuesdays with Morrie, “Until one knows how to die one cannot learn how to live.”


Mark Gerzon in Listening to Midlife: Turning Your Crisis into a Quest, comments:

“From the perspective of mentors such as (Albert) Einstein, (Ernest) Becker,

(Jean) Houston, and (Joseph) Campbell, aging and death do not undermine

life’s meaning; they actually give life meaning. Like artists, we are compelled

to make choices within limits. Just as a painter has a canvas of defined size

and a sculptor has a limited amount of clay, we human beings have a limited

amount of time. With it, we can create beauty, love and meaning, if we dare!”


Today, we have few public models of what to do with this new age. Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter are two very visible examples. Since the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency both Jimmy and Roselyn have kept productive through local, national and international efforts to bring affordable housing, better mental health services and attention to human rights and peace on a global level.


The most significant question is whether boomers will primarily choose to use these new years to pursue a life of consumption, leisure and increased isolation from other generations, or whether they will be actively involved and engaged in the real issues and challenges our children, families and our local and international communities increasingly face.




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