No End of Questions

When I first started writing these … whatever they are: columns, postings, articles, I imagined I was writing them to my kids.  I wanted them to know more about me and I imagined I would share with them wisdom and answers that I had come to over my life.  This week reminded me that I still have real and substantive questions ahead of me and I don’t have answers for myself, let alone anything I would want to offer to anyone else.  This week I was thinking about retirement.

We met with an investment advisor this week to start to gather information to answer a very basic question: When can we retire?  Before that, though, I found myself struggling with an even more basic question: What does it mean to be retired and if I know that answer, how do I get from where I am to there?

I have one friend who is only about five years older than I am who is retired.  In his case he has lived very carefully, started investing much earlier than I did in my career and is single with no kids.  All of which has led him to a place where he can retire and start doing exactly what he wants to do.  In his case he’s volunteering time to his church as a maker and creator for large scale projects.  He’s also got a slew of projects and ideas he wants to work on, not to mention numerous projects that he’s started over the years and now can complete.  He also plays volleyball, juggles and pretty much seems to do what he wants to do.  That sounds pretty great.

My best friend growing up has spent 30 plus years in the Navy and will be retiring either this or next year.  In that time he entered as enlisted, picked up a Masters equivalent degree to become a Physician’s Assistant and then entered the Officer’s Corp via Officer’s Candidate School.  He’ll retire and will work a limited number of hours as a Physician’s Assistant and will have more free time and still have a very solid income.  So, he’ll be retired from the Navy but semi-retired (working part time) from the work force.  That sounds pretty great as well.

We had a joke back when I started working wondering where all the old engineers went?  For us that would have been around 45 or so.  Our company was young and had hired a slew of young engineers who, over the years, I’ve largely stayed in touch with.  Even our managers were only 5-10 years older than we were.  So the notion of working at 45 and what one would do was a bit of a mystery to us then.

As time went on and we became the 35 year old engineers, we did see the engineers a bit older than us and they did continue to have careers.  Some went in to management, some stayed engineers or moved up to Architect positions or changed careers in to Sales or Marketing.  A few left the industry, but mostly they stuck around.  Our joke changed a bit: Where are all the 55 year old Engineers?

Now I’m a 47 year old looking out that additional 20 years and still asking the same questions: Where do engineers go after their mid-50s?  I know I’ve moved in to management and many of my peers are doing that or becoming Architects or staying Engineers in various capacities.  So, for the most part, we seem to be holding our own.  It’s not like I’m hearing evidence of folks being forced out of the industry or jobs or exiting voluntarily.  But, I suspect it will start happening in the coming decade.

Like many things, Engineering is a young man’s job.  A young engineer will put in 60 hours a week indefinitely in the early part of their career because they’re needed, they’re learning a great deal and they have the energy.  Learning new things comes more easily when you are young.

I don’t have many examples in my family for what retirement looks like.  My Dad stopped working after a workplace injury a decade ago, so he stopped working in his 50s and he’s gotten by on disability and living carefully.  Extended family members would stop working but I never had any insight in to how it was done, how they put together their finances, whether they were comfortable or struggled once they stopped working.

My mother and father-in-law retired early, in their 50s, when Christina was in her early teens.  They had lived very carefully and invested in real estate and put together a steady income stream that allowed them to travel and do the things they loved to do, including focusing on being there for Christina through Junior and Senior High as well as college.  Later they would travel and visit their kids around the country.  That’s a model that looks pretty great.

On the upside, we’ve done pretty well putting away in our 401K and some other relatively small investments since Christina and I have been together.  Both of us were in make-up mode after our divorces, so that set us back a bit.  So, not enough to retire in our early 50s, certainly, but it looks like if I can somehow figure out how to keep working till I’m 65, I’ll be okay financially.  That doesn’t actually sound very encouraging because I’m struggling a bit with the idea they’re going to keep letting me do what I’m doing for another 18 years.  The industry will change, the needs of the company will change and I’m not sure they need a first level manager in his 60s, let alone his 50s!

I question what I’ll be doing for the next 18 years.  It worries me a bit, sometimes.  I like to feel like I have some control over my destiny and I don’t like not knowing and, frankly, I’ve always seen myself as someone who worked and was a provider.  That and trying to be the best parent and partner I can be have defined my adult life and much of my sense of self.  But I’ve largely only worked as a software engineer and now a manager of software developers and product development.  Certainly I’ve broadened my skills in those areas and I’m comfortable in a startup or a larger company, but will that be enough?  Probably not.  I’ll undoubtedly need to continue to learn new things, new methodologies, new ways of doing things.

I’ve tried to encourage my kids to start thinking about getting in the practice of putting away money in to their 401k or IRA early because, as we all know, the magic of compound interest is a powerful thing and $10,000 put away in your 20s is worth so much more than $10,000 put away in your 30’s or, heaven forfend, your 40’s or later.  But, it’s a bit of an uphill struggle for them, just as it was for me when I was that age, because they’re just getting started and putting away money for a mythical period 40 years in the future is much harder to do than what they know they want to do now and next week.  But, as a parent, I’ll keep poking and encouraging and trying to model good behavior as we go along.

I don’t know what I will do or would do if were retired.  In my imagination, I’d have time to do projects and learn new things that I don’t have time or energy to do now.
I find that it’s very hard to put time in to learning a new thing right now but I suspect it’s largely due to the fact that I’m working full time and between a lengthy commute and the full time job, that is 60 hours away from home and when I’m done at the end of the day, I’m just tired and my brain does not want to absorb new things.  My brain wants to be entertained without having to work for it.  Anything more is a struggle.  And, I do struggle, but it definitely is more difficult and, I suspect, is more difficult as I get older.

I know there was a time when I imagined that by the time I reached this age I would have all the answers figured out.  My path would be clear before me and I would just be executing and enjoying my life.  And, to be clear, I do enjoy my life.  I appreciate my life.  All the things that contribute to my life are in good and positive places.  I suspect that as long as I’m doing the work to plan for that future and I know I’m putting away what I can when I can, perhaps that’s the best thing to do: Enjoy Now.  The Future will be here soon enough and with it will come clarity about the things that I don’t know today.  And, of course, there will be surprises and things that I can’t predict, can’t know, can’t see coming.  But, that’s life.  And, really, if I knew what that was going to look like, if I knew the answers, there’d be no mystery.  It’d be like being told the end of a really good movie and I don’t want that spoiled for me.  Meantime, I’ll keep doing the work to try and put myself in the best place, on the best path I can and let life come to me as it will.  I guess I don’t need the answers now, won’t know all the answers maybe ever and that’s okay.  It should be a fun ride!