56.RETIREMENT AND ITS DISCONTENTS

56. RETIREMENT and its DISCONTENTS

from www.tradenewswire.net. 

For those in service, retirement follows as surely as night follows day. Yet few people are really prepared for a life of happy retirement.

For those in the professions like doctors, lawyers, accountants and the self employed, there is virtually no retirement; they can work as long as they can, physically and mentally. For some like teachers, there is formal retirement, but they continue to be engaged privately. Retirement affects only those in service .

Ironically, it hits hardest those who depend most on service for living and ego satisfaction or a sense of self-worth! It hits the honest, more than the corrupt! It hits the middle class, more than the others.

FACING RETIREMENT

When we know retirement is certain, why should it hit or hurt us?
Retirement is a new experience for most middle class Indians who know no world outside their work place. Retirement hits them simultaneously on several fronts and counts.
-diminution and uncertainty of income
-reduced or shrunken social role and status
- unmarketable skills which affect self-esteem
-rootlessness
- forced change of lifestyle

Lack of preparation is at the root of most of these troubles. With improvements in health services the post-retirement life is quite long  for most and even longer than service life for many. But people do not  prepare for retired life as consciously or actively as they prepare to enter service. In many cases, preparation or planning in any meaningful measure is just not possible. This adversely affects the quality of life after retirement.

COUNSELLING

It is only recently that we hear of counselling for retirement. Even organizations conduct training programs for their employees and educate them on retirement. Most of them focus on financial aspects.However,  education does not amount to preparation. Even that comes too late in the day. 

Most employers in the so called Organized sector do have plans for retirement, like Provident Fund and Pension. Those in govt. service are best placed in this respect: they have good salary with next to no work; there is automatic periodic revision of pay and perks, often out of proportion to their contribution; and fabulous retirement benefits by way of pension which too is automatically revised upward. Those in the public sector come next but the bureaucrats actively lobby and conspire against revision of pension for other employees. Those in the private sector come third: those in the organized sector often do well if their companies do well. Those in the unorganized sector fare ill, even with all the trade union might behind them.

But in these days of economic turbulence, nothing can be taken for granted, except change. Surely, one has heard of "Who Moved My Cheese?"



Cover of the famous book shown here for purely educational purpose. Published by
Random House UK, 1999.




UNDONE BY INFLATION


The problem with these plans is Inflation. In India, inflation has been raging or reigning continuously from Independence. Inflation has averaged 8% annually, since 1971, hovered around 6% between 1999 and 2007. It rose to above 30% in 1974. What we planned 30 or 35 years ago is hardly sufficient when retirement comes. Savings are eroded, and pension does not keep pace with the rising cost of living, except for the bureaucrats. Investment in gold has historically proved to be a safer hedge against inflation in the long run. But it locks up liquidity.

I give one personal example.  In 1966, I took an insurance policy for Rs. 10,000 which was a princely sum then ( considering a monthly salary of Rs.400, when gold was Rs.72 per 10 grams), maturing after 33 years, with monthly premium being Rs.27.71 On retirement, it amounted to Rs.75,000 with bonus, whereas the mere value of Rs. 10,000 adjusted for inflation, which was cumulatively more than 1000% should have been more than Rs.1, 20,000. It is therefore clear how I was cheated legally by the system out of my own savings!  No government scheme protects you from inflation. The Finance Minister is the biggest robber in the country.

I give another example, that of my  neighbour, about how inflation hits retired people. When  he retired in 2000,[after service of 35 years] his flat had a  rent of  Rs.9000 p.m. with a maintenance payment of Rs.900. Today, the same flat carries a rent of Rs.30,000 p.m., with the maintenance charge of Rs.4000 plus charges for tanker water amounting to Rs.500 p.m.  In these years all govt rates, administered prices, medical and educational expenses, and general prices  have risen considerably. But his pension has remained the same. He was not a government employee, so his pension is not revised. Even though his organization has created a pension fund out of its own income, and is not dependent on govt. contribution, and can afford to revise the pension, the dastardly civil service goonies of Delhi are against any  revision. I use the word Dastardly deliberately, for these Delhi bureaucrats have, quite maliciously, blocked revision proposals for the last 15 years, while their own pensions have been revised thrice!. It seems only they have blood, others carry water in their veins.

PROBLEMS BESIDES FINANCE

So, the immediate problem of retirement is financial stability, and the risk to maintaining the standard of living. One has to downscale. However, in these days of so called development, one is not really free to avoid many expenses. Downscaling may come in some essential areas.

Also, there  are other, deeper problems, basically psychological and social.How to remain active with no routine, how to spend time meaningfully with no active occupation, and without the usual companions- these are big issues. And these cannot be tackled unless the person has  cultivated some active habits, interests and hobbies outside his area of work over the years. Here emerges the true person, shorn of the mask he has been wearing!

Most retirees would be shocked to learn how the skills and competencies they  cultivated during their years of service have become outdated and irrelevant, and unwanted.50 years ago, one could enter the job market with a general academic qualification, like a degree in languages or humanities or social sciences, or even in the basic sciences; and even without a degree for most low paying jobs. They learned on  the job, and acquired needed skills.Such people are especially likely to find themselves unwanted after retirement. Technology  change is so fast and furious, even those with professional qualifications are required to keep updating , and at some stage become outdated. True, many retired persons get employed, some are forced to do so; but this is mostly of the nature of liaison work, and nothing more productive. And this happens at much lower remuneration than before. There is no organizational memory and even vital contributions made during service are forgotten or appropriated by others, so that they are denied even some psychological satisfaction.. Those who looked upon their service as their only  or main window to the world are likely to suffer most.They would feel like a burnt match stick. Senior civil servants resort to writing their memoirs to satisfy their ego, provided they can find a publisher or are able to finance the publication! Everyone is not a V.P.Menon, though! 

FAMILY AND SOCIETY

The problems of retirement are hugely compounded by the changes in family norms and society and polity. Joint families having disappeared, retirees are on their own and have to fend for themselves. They don't have much emotional support outside. Children and their spouses do not wish to stay with parents or in laws. Neighbourhoods have disappeared, and life in housing complexes is anonymous. Most retirees of today are likely to hail from small towns which too have changed and lost their character and quality. There too their old families and links are likely to have disappeared or displaced.
They have lost their old roots, and it is too late to find or foster new ones.

PREPARE OR ADJUST AND COPE

Today, awareness about retirement is spreading. This is surely a welcome development.Youngsters are advised to plan actively for retirement, and in some cases even to seek premature retirement, so that they can take up their pet projects or dreams. Even so, the focus is on financial independence, and this applies only above certain income levels. High incomes prevail only in certain sectors like IT ,  financial services, and huge corporates, and this has created vast distortions across sectors and in society. Prices are uniform but not the capacity to face them. It is certainly not easy or even possible for most to save high today to provide for the possibility of a better tomorrow. Most counsellors today  talk   as if they can  anticipate and   control inflation. Indian economy is still under unsettling transition, along with its society; and in the light of global uncertainties, no one can say what rate of saving is good for the future and what sum will see one safe through inflation.

THE STOICAL TURN

Cover of a recent book. Portfolio, 2016.
Shown here for purely educational purpose.

We cannot tackle the situation unless we turn Stoics. The  Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece asked us to discriminate between what is beyond our control and what is within our control. We have to accept what is beyond  our sphere of  control and influence. No use blaming inflation or the finance minister. Finance ministers will come and go, inflation will stay. We cannot stall the social changes, or suit them to our will or will them our way. We each have to negotiate our way, given the changes. This is what we can, and should, manage.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Serenity Prayer

VANAPRASTHA

The traditional Hindu system talks of a stage of voluntary detachment from society in our progress towards a fulfilled life. They call it Vanaprastha. Today there are no Vanas, only concrete jungles where we live. If we have cultivated such detachment over the years, and reduced our exposure to the outside influences which are not in accord with the true purposes of life (Purushartha), we will not be bothered by retirement. We may even look forward to it. In that case, retirement will not be seen as the end of the road, but as the beginning  of a new pathway. It can be the beginning of a more meaningful phase of life. We can rediscover ourselves and the world. If an Indian feels uncomfortable with retirement, it shows how far he is from our own ideals!

REPACK BAGS!

During our days of active employment, we identify ourselves overwhelmingly with our economic and social roles, with our public face. We are largely dead to ourselves. We hardly reflect on deeper questions of our true identity, or on the meaning of life, our true aims or role in life and society. We move about like robots, mechanically performing conventional functions and following some routines, responding to others' demands, expectations, prescriptions.. Retirement forces a break in such a movement. That is why it hits us. But it need not necessarily be so.It can be a call to awakening. If we are given to a little reflection that life is larger than the roles we play, that the organization we work for is not really dependent on us and can  and will go on without us, that we work for a living and our life is not encased or defined wholly by our work, retirement will not be so unwelcome. We have of course to give our best to the work we do, as anything less detracts from our own dignity. But we are more than our roles in the economy and society. Retirement is the school of life which teaches us this important lesson. It puts us in touch with our real, deeper selves. From being preoccupied with what we do, we face the issue of who we are. Life assumes a new dimension.

Retirement unsettles us first, so that we may settle better in life, may be at a higher level!To face retirement happily and with confidence, we should prepare ourselves and repack our bags. The rest we leave to Providence.

 Fears and scruples shake us.

In the great hand of God I stand, and thence

Against the undivulged pretense I fight.

Banquo in Macbeth

Cover of the book, worth reading.
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 
3rd edition. 2012. Shown here for purely educational purpose.

THERE IS LIFE BEYOND RETIREMENT!

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Tennyson in Ulysses,1842

Or, may we say with Robert Browning:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith " A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid!"

Rabbi Ben Ezra, 1864