Retirement and Romanticism

My wife and I visited a group of friends recently and we inadvertently talked about future and retirement. One point of interest was that in Malaysia, people are normally forced out of work and into retirement, while in the UK, quite a lot of people, especially knowledge workers, continue to work past their 60s. This difference is due to a number of factors, among them I believe, due to the type of power that workplace has in both of these places. According to Project Management theory, there are 5 types of powers, and senior staffs in Malaysia is mostly working through formal and reward power while in the UK, it is expert (or sometimes referent) power. So if a senior staff retires in Malaysia, the formal and reward power is abandoned behind and he/she will be ‘powerless’. In comparison, if you retire and you have expert power, this can be carried through and still be used even post-retirement.

The discussion then went over the usual indulgence people have thinking of doing various things when they retire, things that they have never or rarely done during their working years. A common one is opening a restaurant or operating a farm/plantation. I agree with the comment that we romanticise the extra time and also lump sum of money that will be available when people retire, that it make it seems that almost anything is possible. People also do not see the dull or hard part in these ventures that they only have a vague idea of, that they think these would be easy. Dreams are only snapshots of the real things. That being said, I myself still dream of doing outrageous things, but it helps in tempering my expectations. I only hope that I grow wiser with age and would become an old wise retiree when the time comes.

On another note, it seems callous to talk about retirement when a mother lost 9 of her children and faces death every moment of her day. May Allah grant them forgiveness and the ultimate retirement in Jannah.